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She waved away a lazy fruit fly that was trying to land on her bare knee. The Indian summer was still rolling on and she had worn a sleeveless sundress to cope with the heat. ‘Maybe if you tried looking on essay-writing in the same way that you look on music—as containing a set of classical conventions that need to be followed in order for you to fully express your ideas in the medium, in a way that your audience can understand and appreciate—’
‘OK, OK, I get it,’ said Petra, selecting and buffing up another late-season windfall. ‘You think I’m paying too much attention to one subject. So does Mum. She knows what I want to be, but she keeps saying I can’t put all my eggs in one basket, that I’ll need qualifications to fall back on if I can’t make it as a musician.’ She shrugged her thin shoulders, tipping the apple from hand to hand—drawing attention to the wide span of her palms and long, flexible fingers. ‘She and Dad—my other Dad—think that if I cut down on my piano lessons I could put more energy into my other work, but it doesn’t work like that.’
She tossed the apple into Anya’s lap, amidst the pattern of dark red flowers which decorated her simple shift.
Bingo! thought Anya. Was this part of what had brought
her winging across the Tasman Sea? ‘It is a very tough profession,’ she cautioned. ‘You need a lot of luck as well as loads of talent and a ton of ruthless ambition.’
‘I have talent. I’m ambitious.’
‘No kidding?’ Anya held up the shiny but misshapen and skin-blemished fruit. ‘You’re not trying to bribe the teacher into taking sides, are you?’
Petra grinned. ‘Would it work?’
Anya crunched into the sweet overripe flesh. ‘Not a chance.’
Petra’s eyes suddenly brightened and she sat up, then tried to look nonchalant as she waved a casual hand. ‘Hi, Dad.’
‘Mind if I join you, or am I interrupting the lesson at a critical juncture?’ Since Scott was already plunking himself down between them on the grass he considered the question already answered.
‘Nope. Miss Adams was just complimenting me on my terrific essay,’ said Petra, confident that Anya’s mouthful of apple would give her a few moments’ grace before the inevitable qualification.
Anya cupped her hand over the spurt of juice which chose just that moment to run down her chin. Unfortunately she had left her handbag in the house and she surreptitiously felt for a spare piece of paper to serve as a napkin.
‘Here, allow me.’ Scott produced a handkerchief, but instead of passing it to her to use he tilted up her chin with his knuckles, nudged her hand aside and mopped up the glistening moisture himself, paying particular attention to the primly tucked corners of her sticky pink mouth, his eyes sparkling with amusement at her chagrin.
Some of the juice ended up on his fingers and he licked at them unselfconsciously with a limber tongue.
‘Mmm, sweet yet tart…just the way I like it,’ he approved, his lazy-eyed look making Anya think of everything but apples. She mistrusted him in this kind of whimsical mood. She had earlier seen him in a grey suit, dictating to someone over the speaker phone in his study, but now he was in jeans and a blue Hawaiian shirt—purpose-dressed for lounging out in the open. He hadn’t just wandered out here for a passing hello.
‘Thank you,’ she muttered grudgingly, as she swallowed the rest of her mouthful. She looked down at the apple in her hand, suddenly having lost her appetite.
‘Fair exchange.’ Scott laid his handkerchief over her sticky hand and took the apple, taking a slow bite from where she had left off. He stretched out on his side, propping his chin on his hand, and Anya hurriedly curled her bare legs the opposite way, tucking the hem of her dress securely around her knees. ‘So, what have you two been talking about?’ he asked, watching her smooth the dark green fabric down over her slender thighs.
Predictably, Petra chose not to talk about schoolwork. ‘Miss Adams has been telling me how she used to come here when she was little and this was her uncle’s farm. She got to feed pigs and see them get born, and milk cows with her hands and stuff like that.’
Scott didn’t demand to know what that had to do with the fourth-form syllabus. He grinned at Anya from behind his apple.
‘I see the sophisticated young Sydney-sider isn’t sure whether to be impressed or grossed-out.’ He squinted at her as he took another bite and she knew he was going to say something provocative. ‘So…you were a pink-cheeked milkmaid before you became a teacher…’
His smile mocked her with the clichéd traditional image of a plump, glowing-skinned young woman of earthy good humour and easy virtue.
‘I was only a child at the time, but actually I wouldn’t have minded being a farmer,’ she reproved him, sprinkling her tacky fingers with water from the bottle which she had lain in the shade of the tree-trunk, and wiping them dry with his handkerchief.
‘Or a farmer’s wife? Is that why you moved out here to the country, to improve your prospects with the local yeomanry?’
‘I don’t happen to see marriage as a valid method of achieving my career goals. I have more respect for the spirit of the institution than that,’ she told him, tilting her nose and for once having the luxury of being able to look down on him.
‘Huh?’ Petra’s gold-tipped fringe tickled her wrinkled brow.
‘Miss Adams holds to the romantic view—she wants to marry for love, not money,’ her father extrapolated. ‘Though I suspect, like most people, she might find mutual respect and liking a more durable prospect.’
‘That’s a very cynical view—’
‘As you’ve pointed out before, I’m a product of my experience—as you’re obviously a product of yours. I take it your parents still have a strong marriage…?’
‘As far as I’m aware, yes,’ she said firmly, wondering if he was going to pick on her privileged background again as he had at her interview. ‘They spend a lot of time apart because of the demands of their careers, but it doesn’t seem to have weakened their relationship.’
