The Making of Christina Read online

  About The Making of Christina

  Interior designer Christina Clemente is caught off guard by an intense affair with her charismatic client, Jackson Plummer. He quickly becomes both the cure to Christina’s loneliness and a surrogate father to her young daughter Bianca.

  When Jackson suggests moving to a rundown farm in the mountains, Christina soon forgets her initial hesitation and absorbs herself in restoring the rambling century-old house, Bartholomews Run, becoming obsessed with solving its mysterious history.

  But while living on the isolated farm, her once effervescent child transforms into a quiet sullen teenager and Christina increasingly struggles to connect with her.

  Because Bianca has a secret.

  And the monstrous truth threatens to destroy them all.

  Contents

  Cover

  About The Making of Christina

  Dedication

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-one

  Chapter Twenty-two

  Chapter Twenty-three

  Chapter Twenty-four

  Chapter Twenty-five

  Chapter Twenty-six

  Chapter Twenty-seven

  Chapter Twenty-eight

  Chapter Twenty-nine

  Chapter Thirty

  Acknowledgements

  About Meredith Jaffé

  Also by Meredith Jaffé

  Copyright page

  To my daughters – may you always be strong

  chapter one

  Four Weeks Till Christmas

  Not for the first time, Christina considers how life has narrowed to something she endures. Here she stands on the verandah of the farmhouse in which she grew up, forty-five and living with her mother. Two desiccated women facing an uncertain future with only each other to cling to. The truth arrived like an act of God. It swept through their lives carrying away possessions and experiences, shattering memories, reminding them how temporary and illusory control over life really is. In its wake is guilt. Guilt tattoos Christina with the scars and scabs of a rash that came with the first knowing and never left. A kind of braille blistering over her skin, telling her story. The truth fixes nothing. For one thing, it hasn’t brought back Bianca.

  She can hear her mother shuffling about inside. Imagines Rosa’s hand searching through her personal darkness for the next landfall, gripping the back of a chair or the corner of a table as she charts a tentative course through the house she has lived in for fifty years. In these last twelve months, Rosa has lost her husband Massimo, who buckled under the stress of the trial never to find his feet again, and much of her eyesight as Christina’s tragedy grew to become hers too. Rosa rides grief as if it is a bucking horse, grim in her determination not to be thrown. Christina knows Rosa cannot understand how she allows anguish to trample her so. Her mother sighs and clucks but unlike the old Rosa, the sharp edges of her words have worn smooth. Words, like heartbeats, are finite and long weeks inside a courtroom have used up all of theirs.

  Bianca, who has more to say than either of them, is not here to utter a single sound. She is spilling her words out in some Costa Rican village where she teaches English courtesy of Christian philanthropy. A place chosen as much for its distance as its inadequate telephone services. Bianca communicates via gaudy postcards, which Christina reads aloud at Rosa’s insistence, before sticking them in an untidy row on the fridge. Before she left, Bianca promised she would be home for Christmas but Christmas is only four weeks away and Christina has heard nothing more about it. Perhaps Bianca will return when her students are fluent in asking a passing stranger for the time or when the next bus to the city will arrive. Or maybe not. After all, they both know she owes her mother no common courtesies.

  Rosa calls out from the cool recesses of the house, ‘I hear a car.’

  Christina looks up, shading her eyes. She sees nothing. ‘Are you sure, Mama?’

  ‘Course I’m sure. I’m blind not deaf.’

  Walking to the edge of the verandah, Christina sees a cloud of dust rolling along the fence line past Mr Graukroger’s place.

  Rosa cracks open the screen door and turns a milky stare in the direction of the sound. ‘It’s been a long time since we seen our little girl, eh?’

  ‘We haven’t heard from her. Wouldn’t she have called?’ Christina’s voice waivers, hope strangling logic.

  The car stops at the edge of their property. A person climbs out to open the gate. Even from this distance Christina can see it’s not Bianca. They might be estranged but her daughter’s halo of chestnut hair, her long easy limbs, the way she covers her mouth when she laughs; details like that are imprinted forever.

  The stranger drives through the paddock gate and shuts it behind them. Turning towards the house, they raise a hand and shield their eyes from the beating sun. Christina feels the gaze lock on her and sinks into the shadows.

  ‘It’s not Bianca, Mama.’ The words squeeze out in a panic. She never answers the phone unless she recognises the number. They never have visitors they don’t know. No email, no Facebook, no way to contact her, or use people of a vague acquaintance to find out where she is. It’s safer that way; he has allies.

  ‘Maybe we should go inside, Mama.’

  ‘Why, Tina? Who is it?’

  ‘I don’t know.’ Christina takes her mother’s arm and presses her towards the house.

  Rosa shakes her off. ‘Well is it a man or a woman?’

  ‘I can’t tell.’

  The noise of the car climbing the drive brings the geese honking and flapping from the cool shadows of the house. The occupant attempts to shoo them away and the old gander snaps at their hand. Christina hears a woman’s squeak. As she drives closer, her features coalesce into a face Christina thought she’d never see again.

  She sits in the car, as if acknowledging she is trespassing and seeking permission to come closer. Christina focuses her gaze centimetres above the woman’s head, refusing to admit her presence.

  Rosa hollers Italian expletives at the geese and the birds draw back from the car, snapping and hissing, unwilling to relinquish their role as guardians. ‘Can you see who it is, Tina?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Well?’

  Christina cannot believe the gall of the woman. That she would even dare presume to come here. It raises the hairs on the nape of her neck. ‘It’s Sarah Plummer.’

  ‘What does she want?’ Rosa spits.

  ‘I don’t know.’

  ‘You gonna find out?’

  Christina sighs, takes the steps one at a time, in no hurry either to rescue the woman or find out why she is here. She claps her hands at the geese and sends them away. When they are at a safe distance, Sarah Plummer clambers out, running a hand through cropped hair now a dirty grey. She closes the car door and leans against it, casting a wary eye at the geese, which have lost interest and sought the shade of the hydrangeas.

  ‘This is a nice place.’

  ‘What are you do
ing here?’ Christina says.

  Sarah digs her hands into her jeans and takes them straight out again, rubbing them down her thighs. She glances up at the house where Rosa stands staring, listening, and back at Christina. ‘It’s so damn hot. Is it possible to sit in the shade?’

  Christina twists her mouth. She spent many years in the opposite corner to this woman. Sarah playing the indignant wife to Christina’s role as home wrecker. Neither of them owes the other a thing. Christina stomps up the steps, leaving Sarah to figure it out for herself.

  Sarah offers a tentative hello to Rosa who responds by going inside, letting the screen door wheeze and smack against the frame. Sitting on the steps, Sarah worries a gold cross back and forth along its chain. With her head bowed, Christina can see the toll this past year has taken on Sarah. Her hair has thinned along the part, the skin stretches around the heavy bone of her jaw. She knows how that feels – to wear your skin so tight it crushes you.

  ‘My children have taken this thing with their father very badly. Ashleigh’s out of control,’ Sarah begins.

  The mention of Ashleigh reminds Christina of Anne Rushmore’s words about damaged children. The detective is often in her thoughts; Christina misses her reassuring presence in her life.

  ‘Simon, well he’s cut from the same cloth as his father.’

  Christina glares over the paddocks.

  ‘Oh I didn’t mean like that.’ Sarah’s hands flutter. ‘I meant hard, uncompromising, well, you know.’ Her smile is grim.

  Christina doesn’t want to hear about Sarah’s pain. She is as much to blame as Christina. Perhaps more so because she was his wife for all those years before. Years when Sarah saw or heard nothing. If she had opened her eyes, acted, stopped him, they wouldn’t be standing here in the scorching summer heat. They wouldn’t even know each other. Christina would be free of the burden of misery.

  ‘Josh was the surprise but you may have guessed that.’

  Christina grips her arms by each elbow, stilling the tremor rising through her core.

  Sarah gives a slow nod of comprehension, as if Christina has responded. ‘He was always quiet, to the point of being withdrawn. I assumed, well, that he chose to be that way because it was impossible to compete for centre stage with his brother and father.’

  Christina glimpses through the veil cast by her own anger and despair. Sees the tears spill, tracking along the grooves of the woman’s face. Sarah Plummer is defeated. He has made her old. He has made them both old.

  Sarah shifts on the step, chasing the shade. ‘I assumed it had to be Ashleigh because she’s always been such a handful. The piercings, the tattoos, that awful black lipstick.’ Sarah shudders. ‘When she turned thirteen this violent dark person emerged. She even tried to kill me once, but you probably already know that.’

  Sarah’s appalling confession transfixes her. She keeps talking, assuming Christina shares an interest in the details of her children’s lives. It is hard to believe Sarah thinks their shared experience gives them some sort of sisterhood. All Christina keeps thinking is, Why are you here?

  Sarah continues, ‘Anyway, the point is, I assumed it had to be Ash because she was always daddy’s little girl. Because she was highly strung and unpredictable. She fitted the stereotype.’ Sarah is breathless, exhausted by her words.

  Christina watches her anguish, thinking how right Sarah is. How they were raised in a generation when only little girls were thought of as vulnerable. Before everyone realised how institutionalised and widespread this violence really was.

  ‘All the time it was Josh.’ Sarah hunches her shoulder as if this will protect her. ‘I didn’t realise until after the trial when he tried to hang himself.’

  Christina raises her eyebrows.

  Sarah nods. ‘Yes, from the railing in his wardrobe. It’s got this especially high railing because the boys are so tall.’ She draws it with her hands and then drops them to her lap, realising what she has said. ‘Of course you know that.’

  A flush rises up Christina’s neck. Sarah continues, ‘Thank God I got to him before any real damage was done. The alternative doesn’t bear thinking about.’

  Christina swallows against the surge of pity churning in her guts. The mutual destruction of their families is not a good enough reason for Sarah Plummer to come all the way from Sydney to bare her soul. She waits, expecting more.

  The copper pipes shudder and clang as water travels from the outside tank to the kitchen. Christina hears the tap running, hopes Rosa has tested the temperature before scalding herself like last time. She shifts her weight in readiness for a cry for help.

  Sarah Plummer clears her throat. ‘And Simon is living in New York. He cut off all contact after the trial. I tried reasoning with him but he said from now on if anyone asked about his parents he planned to say they were killed in a car crash.’

  Christina rubs her hand across her face, swallowing against the sickness rising in her belly. As if by wishing something true made it so. How like the father is the son.

  Sarah’s voice drops to a confessional whisper. ‘I was only twelve when I met him, you know. He was a few years ahead of me and a surfie; cool. Even at sixteen he had swagger and all the girls at school were besotted with him. When he asked me out, I thought I was so special. Right from the start, I’d do anything for him. Anything at all.’

  Christina shivers and brushes her hands over her arms. The words could be hers.

  ‘I fell pregnant when I was fifteen. I didn’t want a baby, I was no more than a child myself. Jackson was so angry, told me I was a stupid slut for getting knocked up. But the thing is, I wasn’t trying to trap him. It sounds incredible now, but at fifteen I didn’t understand how easy it was to fall pregnant. He dragged me around to my parents’ place and told them he’d marry me. They weren’t thrilled but they adored Jackson and at least we were doing the right thing. They offered us the granny flat behind the garage, as if two young kids had any other choice. If they ever heard the fighting, they never said anything. My parents were old school. What goes on behind closed doors in a marriage is nobody else’s business.’

  Sarah rubs the sweat from her palms and stares out over the paddocks shimmering in the afternoon heat. ‘Jackson never hit me but he was often cruel with words. In the first few years of our marriage, he demanded sex every day, even at that time of the month, because he didn’t want to be one of those poor bastards who never got laid again once they were hitched. Those were his exact words. I didn’t like it but I wanted to do the right thing. I can still remember how embarrassed I was hanging the sheets on the line to dry. The stains were so stubborn. What did my mother think?’ Sarah appeals to Christina and Christina can see that vulnerable girl in Sarah’s eyes, still nursing her hurt after all these years.

  But she can’t allow herself to feel sorry for this woman. The possibilities contained in her words make Christina angry. ‘Why did you stay?’

  ‘At first because I fell pregnant again and my parents couldn’t exactly take me in, could they? Anyway, where was I to go at nineteen with two kids under four?’

  ‘Yes but later, when the boys were older.’

  Sarah shrugs. ‘By then we’d launched TBK and I was useful. I’m good with numbers.’

  It was a fact Christina had heard a million times before.

  ‘But the point is, he settled down once we started making money. Life was good. Everything was moving in the right direction. I put it down to him being young and frustrated and blaming me.’

  And there it is – this other version of the story, similar enough but different to the version Christina knows, the one where Sarah is the culprit. She has already spent endless hours trying to reconcile her past with the truth; she isn’t sure she has the energy to go there again. ‘Why are you telling me this?’

  ‘I feel so guilty about the kids.’

  The flush on Christina
’s neck deepens. ‘But you supported him in court. Every day you and your children sat there sneering. You called me a lying bitch!’

  Sarah’s mouth opens and closes, the words dry in her throat. Christina fights the urge to shake the answer out of her.

  Averting her eyes, Sarah whispers, ‘I believed him. I had to believe him because if you were telling the truth, I had married a monster.’

  The truth hangs there, a belligerent guest, demanding attention.

  A coughing fit rattles Sarah’s body. Duty makes Christina run into the house to fetch a tumbler of water. Leaning against the coolness of the sink, she notices Rosa hiding in a twilight corner by the kitchen window. She opens her mouth to speak but Rosa presses a finger to her lips. Outside, she stands over Sarah’s crumpled figure holding out the glass.

  Sarah sips the water and when her breath calms, she says, ‘You remind me of me. All twisted up inside, eaten away by guilt. Plenty of time on your hands to ask all the questions with no right answers.’

  Christina wonders what Rosa thinks of Sarah’s notion that there are no explanations for what happened to them and recognises what a nonsense it is.

  Sarah picks a leaf off the camellia bush and shreds it down the spine. Studying the pieces, she asks, ‘How’s Bianca?’

  The small flame of compassion Christina feels towards Sarah flares and dies at the mention of Bianca. ‘That’s none of your business.’

  Sarah’s face dissolves into pity. ‘Christina, I have little hair left and what I do have is grey. I’ve lost my appetite and what I do eat makes me ill.’ She rips open the buttons of her shirt. There, where there should be a breast, is an angry crescent-shaped welt. There are two round knobs where her collarbones meet her shoulders; rows of ribs strain against her chest. ‘Mastectomy a year ago, right after the trial. The other one comes off in a month.’

  Stunned, Christina mumbles, ‘I’m sorry,’ turning to where she knows Rosa is listening behind a veil of lace.

  ‘Don’t be. I’m not after your pity. I’m here because my time has run out. But yours hasn’t. You must make peace with yourself, Christina, because guilt,’ – here Sarah clutches the scar which whitens beneath her fingers – ‘guilt will destroy you and then he has won.’