Valley of Sinners Ch. 05

"Good one, Maggie. No luggage problem in buying a diamond ring," said Sue.

"Only a credit card problem next month," Maggie sighed.

The following afternoon Maggie was taken to fashion houses. She liked the clothes, liked them on the models, but unlike her two smaller framed companions, she did not purchase anything.

"Right, Hope said Sue. You take our purchases back to the hotel and have a lovely, long sleep. I'm taking this under-shopped Kiwi to Macy's – first stop the perfume and make-up counters."

Maggie will forever remember that late afternoon walking into what she soon was calling, 'Shoppers' Heaven'. The perfumery counters were like a an oasis of shapes, colors and exotic fragrances like nothing she'd experienced, one hundred times more extensive than in her previous experience of shopping in central Auckland. She couldn't believe that the displays and exotic-looking salespersons could continue going on and on as they did.

Then she went into the women's fashion clothing and there, rack after rack of beautifully cut and finished garments in her size, and even far larger. In the basement she found a special sale item – a luggage collection by designer Diana von Fustenberg. She chose a hot-pink half crescent travel bag with black leather trimming reduced to half price for only $US260.00. Maggie didn't travel a great deal but just possessing such a luxury item made the purchase worthwhile.

Flying home they had quite a long stopover in LA. They went into a restaurant for cocktails and settled their portion of the tab that Hope had kept for the three of them.

"My first night manicure and massage and then the Circle ferry trip around Manhattan Island – they are missing from my account," Maggie pointed out.

"Those were our shouts for a Kiwi girl new to the wonders of New York," Sue yawned. Maggie kissed them both and said what wonderful women they were. Maggie had a bulging suitcase packed with presents and fashion clothes and an additional item as surplus baggage which Sue was able to negotiate its inclusion as accompanying baggage with no penalty payment. It was something Maggie the county cook had always wanted, and she found it at Macys – a 1.6 quart Bain-marie copper double boiler with a porcelain insert. After her diamond ring, it was her most desirable purchase.

Sue had gone to sleep on her side of the table and Hope and Maggie were drinking their second cocktail, filling in time for the four-hour wait, when Maggie thanked Hope for being such a brick for shepherding Maggie through he first real overseas experience; previously she'd only been to Australian.

"Those fellows we were with, did you give it to Ruben?"

"Yes," Maggie said unembarrassed. "I found one why his nickname is junior – he was a little under developed down there."

"Well, perhaps you should have had Al," Hope sighed. "You know they were married men and all spoke fondly of their wives and children and kept on saying that all they wanted to was rip-roaring time, with some petting to finish off, but that's all. It sounded rather sweet, actually but men being men it was no surprise that they were unable to remain in denial. I've never heard Sue screaming and shrieking so much, she really got going."

"Glad to know that I wasn't the only one to make a naughty fellow of my date," Maggie laughed

A few minutes later she had a great desire to make a confession.

Maggie is a person who tends to blurt and only think of the consequences after her mouth has opened, typing that tendency to her personality. But this time she was in control with a secret bottled up for far too long. Despite the consequences of disclosure that could end a lifelong friendship, she pressed ahead as with this recent display of kindness by her friend it no longer seems right to hold out on Hope.

"Hope, you and I have been very close from the time we first came together at pre-school. You have always been a great inspiration to me, and have been very supportive – far more than I have deserved."

"What's this?" Hope laughed. "A proposal?"

"I have a confession to make, Hope. Something that could tear our friendship apart; I have to tell you."

Hope studied Maggie's face and could see Maggie's hazel eyes looked troubled.

"Think before you leap, Maggie. Don't tell me anything you'll regret later."

"Hope, it's time to come clean. True friends don't keep secrets from one another like this one."

Maggie looked at Hope intently. Suddenly the calm face before her went white and lost all expression. It transformed into the face of a bewildered woman.

"Oh God, it's Alayna – you and my father and Alayna, isn't it?"

Maggie began crying, not even surprised at how easily Hope had peeled away the secret.

Hope reached out her arms, and Maggie fell into them, sobbing.

"It's all right, Maggie," Hope, said, tears forming. "He was such an artful seducer; you'd be fodder in his hands. Some of the most resilient women in the valley were lured to his side. But although he's gone, the consequences remain with us. We've got to live with this, Maggie, just as we have been doing."

"I'm so ashamed to have been living the big lie. I just want to roll over and die."

"Hush, Maggie," Hope soothed, clasping her trembling friend even closer. "You are distraught. Think about what you've ended up with from a brief moment of indiscretion. Alayna is a bubbling, engaging personality. She is growing up into a beautiful and charming girl. I treasure her, Maggie, and to suddenly find that she is my half sister is...well...it's a shock, yes, but I now find myself ecstatic that I am related to her. This will endear her to me more than ever."

Maggie sobbed and sobbed.

"Come, come, Maggie. You are a magnificent mother and I am thankful you have wrenched this secret loose. It has not been easy for you but for me, I'm over the moon!"

"Really?" Maggie said, lifting her head to look at Hope dubiously. "You don't wish me to disappear from your life?"

"Good gracious no, Maggie. I want to remain as close to my half-sister as I can. Your secret is totally safe with me."

Sue stirred, asking what Maggie and Hope were whispering about so intently. She said she felt horny, wanting to get back home to her husband quickly.

"Well, I'm not unduly troubled; I've long learned to take it or leave it," sighed Hope.

"Likewise," said Maggie, avoiding showing Sue her emotionally ravaged face. "But there we go."

* * *

That amazing revelation had strengthened the relationship between Hope and Maggie as they now shared a huge secret. True to her word Hope had kept the secret and now Hope was worried that in his determined probing Nash might wrench that secret from Maggie. Still, secrets were history; the biggest worry was for her to avoid leaking the secret as she and Nash had become very intimate – verbally.

Over breakfast Hope told Nash that she and Susan Whitehead were going to Paris for seven days the following month and suggested he ask his mother to stay and look after him, suggesting Rose have her room. With the proposal still sinking in Nash phoned his mother who accepted instantly, saying that the neighbors would look after Rufus, her aged cat who'd wandered into her home almost eight years ago and stayed.

Nash said to Hope after relaying the news, "It's a wonder you two don't take Maggie on your annual shopping trip – you do lots of other things together."

"Well, you know. Maggie is Maggie. We did take her a few years back to New York. We had a great time, but Maggie was like a heifer out of its paddock in fashion shops. All the women made her feel so uncomfortable – not because of their elegance and airs but because so many seemed all bordering on products of anorexia. They made Maggie feel as if she were a balloon – her words. She rather held us back. Sue and I could have gone shopping alone but one doesn't leave an extrovert gal like Maggie loose and alone in New York!"

"Quite, like me she would be more at home in cities known for their market days and beer and wine festivals."

Veneering a marmalade trace over a piece of mixed grain lightly toasted bread (a grapefruit or sliced orange, one piece of toast and coffee comprised Hope's standard breakfast), she asked how the research on their book was going.

"Fine," Nash said, wiping the remnants of bacon, eggs and hash browns on his plate with a piece of buttered toast. "I've spoken to various contract growers and now it's time to go to the winery."

"Oh, I suggest you delay that until after Sunday. You'll meet the boss brother Neven at golf on Sunday as he's my partner."

"I more or less know him, as we've met socially and when I joined a public tour of the winery."

"You'll get to know him a lot better at golf as you two will see each other in action and will be doing a lot of talking. It will be a five and a half hour round, as it's Sunday afternoon with refreshment stops at the 7th and 14th."

"Getting to know him will help my research?"

"Of course it will. Don't be so naive. The Bronkovics are very traditional – they don't talk about their business with strangers. Neven is the business brains of the family although his Mimi is the day-to-day ruler of the three families. She is French, the daughter of the head of a family winery who Neven met when he went to study wine-making technology in France during one vintage. Neven was twenty at the time, she just seventeen. But he returned home without her. She arrived some months later, unannounced, and calmly said that she's arrived to marry Neven, who at that stage had the hots for one of his cousins. His mother jumped at the chance to get Neven out of the pants of cousin Lenka, so began arranging the wedding and bullied into her husband into supporting her. She wrote to Mimi's parents in France, who were totally against the wedding and when it was decided to proceed they and other family members refused to attend."

"The mother, that was Natasa, right – without the 'h'?"

Rolling her eyes, Hope said, "I wish you could have met her, Nash. She was a matriarch without peer. She never shouted, perpetually smiled and her normal manner was as soft as silk. Yet men were scared of her as they could feel her authority, hearing the whispers about her of course. Even the toughest son, Neven, treated her with deference. Some time after Natasa's death he told me that his mother never ranted publicly. What she did was to smilingly invite the recalcitrant male or female into a vacant room, the door would close and then the windows would rattle as Natasa bared her fangs and raised her voice. Before long the victim would come scuttling out and Natasa would emerge completely unruffled."

Glancing at Hope and noticing a tear, Nash said softly, "You really liked her, didn't you?"

Hope smiled, screwing her serviette in her hand, saying at Natasa had virtually become her surrogate mother, a relationship that developed long before Natasa and her father began their tryst.

"During my first year at high school Natasa saw me in the village one afternoon looking sad. I knew her of course, as I'd gone all through school with her sons, and was in the same class as the youngest, Marko. But she'd always been nothing more than polite to me. On that afternoon, it all changed. She sat down beside me, hugged me and said that no young girl should be without a mother. Until then I'd thought that I was unbelievably tough for a girl, but I just leaned into her and cried and cried.

"Initially the boys were jealous of the relationship that developed, but they became used to it. Over time I had sex with all three of them, individually of course. But even that did not make us any closer as like their father they tended to be rather arrogant and believed women were inferior to men. Even that changed many years later."

"The time you dressed them down when you were asked to hand the painting back?"

"Very astute, Nash; yes, something came over me and I gave it to them, both barrels. They began to panic, looking towards the door. Natasa saw that and locked that door and the one behind them. That made their eyes bulge every further and my tongue got sharper and sharper. Afterwards no-one mentioned that ten minutes of verbal assault. I guess all of my frustrations at their repeated put-downs and my shame over my father's behavior came welling out of me. It soon came to my attention, however, through subtle changes, that I had been elevated by the boys to more or less the status of fourth brother. None ever attempted to have sex with me again."

Nash was most impressed and it occurred to him all of these people in the web connecting back to Hope had opened his mind and memory to relationships in a way that women appear to handle so readily and yet for many men it remains a struggled. He was pleased to learn about the development of this new skill – this 'brain readjustment'.

"That is a very powerful story, Hope. Do I include it in the book?"

"Do as you wish, Nash. But the consequences for you might be terminal if my so-called brothers believe that you have publicly shamed me – not them, but me. They are rather proud of their adopted sibling so might group to defend my honor because they consider me to be Natasa's replacement, though nothing has ever been said to suggest that. It's just that I'm called in whether there is a crisis within the extended family, and my seat is where Natasa used to sit as the matriarch."

"Nothing has ever been said, how odd?"

"I wouldn't worry about that Nash; it's just how the family operates, the traditional way. I'd worry more about your future if I were you. Publicly shaming a Bronkovic is no laughing matter. Natasa's sister Ibelia was sexually touched by a gardener when she was a novice nun. The next day the gardener was found bound hand and foot behind a grazing horse which had wandered half a mile down a gravel road from the convent. The man's face was a fearful mess, as was much of his body. But he lived. There was a police enquiry but with no witnesses, no evidence apart from the horse and no-one talking including the horse, the gelding was handed back to Ibelia's father who had reported it stolen just hours before the dragging occurred.

"Jesus!"

"Oh, there are numerous stories but perhaps the one I like best is the one concerning Neven's bullying school teacher. In class one day he called Neven a 'Yugoslav bonehead' and in gym that afternoon another tutor used that very same insult when Neven crashed off the parallel bars. The fact that the same expression was used did not go amiss. It had been rumored that the two male teachers were queers or gay as it's called today. Next morning when the caretaker arrived to light the school boilers he found both teachers nude, chained together. They were gagged, with flour sacks tied over their heads and the word spelt 'Queeers' painted in red paint on their bellies. The police were called but before they arrived some senior boys had grouped early for rugby and saw the chained duo, and that was the end of those teachers at that school. The teachers swore that school pupils had caught them working late and had then humiliated then, both insisting that although unmarried they were not homosexual. The police questioned some parents known to be outspoken about homosexuality among both male and female school teachers, but their enquiries were unsuccessful. Natasa told me not long afterwards that she found spots of red paint on her boy's shirts and when she checked, that tube of exact color match was missing from her studio."

Nash laughed, but it's not his usual easy laugh. "Hell, Hope. What am I to do?"

"Work hard on getting the respect of Neven first. Then if you write about any of these things I would suggest you sit down with the family and show them what you have written, emphasizing that changes and deletions can be made. You never know, they may laugh, slap each other on the back and say publication of such material may strengthen the legends associated with the Bronkovic family. Then again...."

"Then again what?"

"You're the writer, use your imagination," Hope answered vaguely, rising from the table and leaving Nash scratching his chin as she went to the next room to fetch her reading glasses.

For most of the morning Nash worked steadily, transcribing his notes from weeks of interviews from notebooks to computer files. He found it immensely satisfying and soon forgot about being the subject of insane mistreatment at the hands of the burly Bronkovic brothers. He turned a page in a notebook and there lay Lisa's business card. After a brief hesitation, he reached for his phone.

"Hi Lisa, it's Nash."

He heard her breath catch in his throat; that flattered him and sounded promising.

"Nash, oh Nash. I'm often thinking about you...and mum of course. Where are you sleeping?"

What an odd question to ask, he thought but said in her old room.

"Oh,"

"Oh what?"

"Just oh."

Puzzled by this monosyllabic conversation, Nash asked Lisa was everything all right.

"Yes, but it's very hot in the city and the air polluted by bush fires."

"Oh."

"Work going well?"

"Yes, thanks."

"Your mother is well, I just phoned to say hello. I was going through my notebooks and came across your business card, so just phoned on impulse. I've miss your voice, and your laughter. I've miss seeing you about the place. I'm sitting in the orchard and right now there is an empty sun loafer beside me."

"Oh, Nash!" she wailed chokingly and said goodbye, terminating the call.

"Was that a phone call or was that what?" Nash grumbled aloud, looking at his phone before putting on to the table. He assumed that Lisa must have had her mind on important business when he phoned and like a thickhead he's warbled on and made her homesick.

A couple of minutes later the house phone went and with the windows open Nash heard Hope talking but could not make out what she was saying. It was a call of several minutes and soon afterwards she arrived with cool drinks and stretched out beside him.

Hope's sun loafer was out in the sun, so she pulled the bottom of her sundress right up and begins rubbing in suntan cream. Nash observed she had rather nice thighs for an older woman – aware she eat practically nothing during the day and really only seemed to eat a decent amount at dinner when they had guests or eat out. Who was she saving herself for? Then he remembered she still had 'her men' as she called them, without embarrassment. Nash wondered if 'Horse' Tait had ever been clamped between those tanning thighs.

Perhaps he should ask Alayna if she suspected anything as he would be picked up by Alayna at nightfall to go for a drive. They hadn't been together for weeks but she'd phoned earlier saying she was rather lonely and wondered if he'd like to mess about a bit. Nash had replied yes, that he'd been thinking of her at night's recently, seeing her long thighs and her almost perfect breasts floating above his bed. He noted that she'd started breathing quite heavily and said he'd not called because he did not wish to intrude on her busy life. Nash suggested perhaps they could go out for a meal and make a night of it. That excited Alayna so he said he'd walk down to the road entrance and be waiting for her at 9:30. Her response was to make that 9:00.

Hope asked Nash to rub suntan cream on to the back of her legs. She pulled her sundress up again and flicked the back higher so her black lace panties were visible.

"Nice thighs."

"Perhaps so and thank you for not adding 'for an older woman'."

Nash kept his mind in neutral as he squeezed the cream on to his hands and quickly smeared it over the warm, soft and very pliable skin. Being in neutral or not his mind telegraphed an urgent message to his penis to snap to attention. He knew this was the classic situation that in novels led to unintentional sex – he really had no idea. Nash finished the sexy rub, closed the lid of the cream and began walking away to...well he had no idea why where he was going or why.