The Whole Bright Year

by Debra Oswald

  ‘Not the bashing, I don’t reckon. But he was there. Trailing after Mick like a brain-damaged puppy. With Kieran’s record, he’d end up in jail for a serious deal like that, wouldn’t he.’

  ‘Most likely, yes. Look, the best move is for Kieran to hand himself in to the police.’

  ‘Maybe so. But I’m worried he’d get blamed for all the stuff Mick did. Kieran’d blab out more than he should, make things worse for himself and end up in jail for a long time.’

  ‘I get what you’re saying, but —’

  ‘And you know, jail for a soft kid like Kieran . . .’

  ‘Sure. I know.’

  ‘He needed rescuing. I rescued him,’ Sheena said flatly.

  She waited for Joe to rip into her short-sighted strategy. But instead of doing that, he flopped his head back with a weary smile. ‘What will you do now?’ he asked.

  ‘What we were doing before the car broke down – drive round, doing big figure eights on the map.’

  ‘But in the long run – what?’

  ‘I’m hoping the cops get their paws on Mick sometime soon and he soaks up some of the blame. Make things easier for Kieran. Meanwhile, my job is: keep my brother alive and out of major trouble.’

  Sheena knew that sounded pretty feeble, she knew it wasn’t much of a plan, but Joe didn’t try to argue her out of it. He just said, ‘Well, good luck.’

  Sheena was waiting for Joe to get up and go. But he stayed there, sitting beside her on the step. It was nice to have another human being – other than Kieran – to talk to. With the police trouble out in the open and the decision to leave the farm already in place, she could afford to let her guard drop. And anyway, she was sick to death of the effort it took to keep that guard up.

  ‘The last couple of weeks, Kieran’s been so grounded, really got into the work,’ said Sheena. ‘But I dunno . . . I’ve always been scared my little brother is doomed.’

  ‘I don’t think he’s doomed.’

  She wanted to believe Joe was right about that. It was incredible to hear another person, a sensible person, say it. Listening to this man offer a smidgen of hope for Kieran made the wretchedness come rushing up from her belly to tighten around her throat.

  ‘He’ll hate my guts for making him leave. Ooh yeah,’ said Sheena, attempting a laugh. ‘The next few weeks are going to be seriously shitful. Kieran miserable, blaming me, me feeling like a bitch.’ And now there was no way she could stop her voice trembling.

  Joe fumbled in the inside pocket of his suit jacket to retrieve one of those small packets of tissues. He was the kind of guy who carried little packs of tissues in his pocket. He probably never even used them himself. He probably just kept them on hand in case some sneezing child or injured elderly gent or weeping woman needed a tissue. Right now, Sheena was the weeping woman. She pulled a tissue from the packet, bunched it up and pressed it against her eyes to blot up the tears.

  ‘Thanks,’ she said. ‘You’re a kind man.’

  ‘You reckon? Not so sure about that.’

  ‘At least you think about what’s going on for other people.’

  Joe puffed out a defeated breath. ‘For all the good that does.’

  ‘Well, it’s more than the self-obsessed dicks out there in the world ever do.’

  ‘Maybe. You know, one of the things I really like about your brother – he thinks the best of everyone.’

  ‘Ha – he does do that. But it means they take advantage of him. He doesn’t know what people are really after.’

  ‘But you do?’

  ‘Yes, I do,’ replied Sheena emphatically. ‘They still end up taking advantage of me, but.’

  Sheena pulled a stupid face and Joe laughed.

  ‘I’ve been a tiny bit jealous,’ she said, ‘watching Kieran and Zoe with their pashing and staring into each other’s eyes and all that shit. Kidding themselves – obviously.’

  Sheena instantly regretted speaking that way to him. She was an idiot. Joe shook his head, staring out into the orchard, not looking at her, and she worried she’d offended him somehow.

  ‘What?’ she asked him.

  ‘The way you look at me – like you can see every dark secret in here.’ He tapped his own forehead.

  ‘I can’t really. It’s a trick I do with my face. I know bugger-all about what’s going on in people’s heads, but pretty much everyone’s got dark shit inside them, so if you do this look —’ she demonstrated a suspicious, slit-eyed stare, ‘the other person’s mind does the rest and they imagine I’m on to them. That’s the trick.’

  ‘It works.’

  ‘Yeah, freaks people out. Sometimes they blurt stuff out without me doing anything.’

  Joe frowned, as if doing a quick audit of his own mind. ‘I’ve never gone in for blurting stuff out. Too careful. Too much in the habit of filtering every single thing that comes out of my mouth, making sure there’s no risk anyone could get hurt.’

  ‘Well, that’s a good way to be,’ said Sheena. ‘Better than being a tactless fucking big mouth.’

  ‘Is it, though? Or is it just fucking repressed?’ He grinned at her with a boldness she hadn’t seen from him before. Then he dropped his face away. ‘But the thing is, I’ve got responsibilities, I’ve got people I have to worry about, I’ve got history I have to remember. You get used to censoring yourself.’

  He looked back at her – Do you understand? Sheena was aware of the history he was talking about. She knew stuff about his parents, she knew Celia’s story, she’d heard the tales from Roza. And even if she couldn’t entirely understand, she wanted him to feel understood, so she nodded.

  He went on. ‘After a while, after always talking yourself into the responsible choice, you end up talking yourself out of impulses. You lose connection with your own – I can’t explain it – sorry . . .’

  ‘No, I think I get you.’

  Joe looked at her intently for a moment, as if working out another way to explain himself. Then he suddenly slid along the bench and kissed her.

  Sheena remembered thinking Joe was a good-looking man when they had first met on the outskirts of Narralong. She had been marooned with her piece-of-shit car rolled onto the roadside dirt, farting grey smoke, her little brother wandered off into the neighbouring paddock, trying to lure the sheep to him by offering them Twisties. Joe had pulled his car over and gave them a lift to the mechanic in town. On the drive, he had chatted to Kieran with a simple courtesy that made her ache with gratitude.

  Later, once the car had been towed into town, Joe had stopped by the garage to check they were okay and mentioned the chance of fruit-picking work. That first day, Sheena had definitely found the guy attractive, even if he wasn’t really her type, in his suit and his staid job. And she had sensed he was attracted to her too. But since then, in all the times Joe had been out to Celia’s farm, he had never shown any sign of lusting after her, so she figured she had misread those initial cues. There was no mistaking the cues now.

  They kissed each other for a moment, but then Joe pulled back and dropped his face away again.

  ‘Oh,’ Sheena said, ‘now you’re thinking, “This is a mistake, this’ll cause problems.” I mean, you’re right, we shouldn’t do this.’

  ‘You really are no good at reading thoughts. I’m thinking how incredibly soft your mouth is.’

  They kissed again, and this time it wasn’t I wonder what it would be like to kiss you, it was We might be about to have sex with each other.

  Sheena scrambled to reason with herself, but it was difficult to think rationally when she was kissing this man. Maybe it wasn’t a terrible idea. She was leaving in a couple of hours and they would never lay eyes on each other again. She wasn’t wrecking his marriage – no one need ever know if they fucked each other tonight. If Roza was correct – and she most likely was – Joe was starved for sex, so Sheena could tell herself there was a charity element. He was a lot older than her but he was a gorgeous man and she wanted to fuck him. Maybe it could be as
simple as that.

  Sheena stood up, and Joe seemed uncertain if she was about to slam the door against him or invite him inside. She flicked her head to indicate he should step into the cabin, then she shoved the esky between the end of the bunk bed and the doorway. She was almost certain Kieran would cling to every minute with Zoe until ten, the agreed time, but just in case, the esky would be an effective barricade if Kieran came back early and tried to push the door open. The moving of the esky felt like a bold move, the certain signal that she wanted this to happen. Joe shrugged off his jacket, chucked it on the top bunk, then pulled Sheena to him.

  There was a degree of awkwardness – having sex on the single bunk bed, crowded under the top bunk. It required a fair bit of ‘Sorry, let me just move sideways’ and ‘Watch your head on the rail’. But Joe was decisive as he gently manoeuvred their two bodies in the limited space. And that didn’t seem to diminish the intensity of the encounter, with its weird mix of politeness and lust. Joe was simultaneously the considerate man and a guy who desperately needed a fuck.

  Sheena knew this wasn’t sex between two people because they cared about each other. Well, they probably did care about each other, but that was beside the point. He wasn’t having sex with her in particular – he just needed to fuck someone. But there was tenderness and no darkness or anger in it.

  Roza had cooled off by lying in a tepid bath, happily allowing the house to grow dark as it filled with the milder night air. Afterwards, she did switch on a few lamps, then pulled on cotton harem pants and a matching top made from a fabric shot through with gold thread. There was rarely anyone in her house to see this sparkly and exotic ensemble, but she liked to wear it most evenings anyway.

  She filled her belly with a chicken, wine and vegetable concoction she had cooked because the dish was one of Josef’s favourites. She ate without him – she was hungry, and anyway, he hadn’t mentioned a definite arrival time on the phone. She put the leftovers in the fridge on an elegant platter in case her son needed food when he eventually drove up.

  When the nine o’clock news came on the radio, Roza turned up the volume to hear the weather forecast. Tomorrow it would be forty-two degrees, well over a hundred on the old scale. After the bout of heavy rain, tomorrow’s high temperature meant there was a risk an extraordinary thing could happen in the orchard: the fruit might cook on the trees. True. Roza herself would never have believed it if she hadn’t seen it with her own eyeballs one year.

  She put fresh sheets on the bed in the spare room for Josef. He hadn’t said why he was coming to stay the night at her house and Roza didn’t ask, even though the question was rattling in her throat, desperate to jump out of her mouth. She hoped it was a sign that he might be reconsidering the future of his marriage, but she didn’t dare set her heart on it. Better not to set up expectations that could fall short. Better to allow events to roll towards you in their own time, then choose your moment to duck out of the way or let them slide over you.

  The knock on the door just after nine was too insistent to be Joe. He would never knock in such a demanding way.

  ‘Who is that?’ Roza called from the hallway.

  ‘It’s me,’ Celia called back. ‘Sorry if I gave you a fright, Roza. Sorry.’

  When Roza opened the door, she saw that the woman looked as anxious as she sounded. Celia had been running across the property, the ground still soggy from the rain, so her bare shins and sandalled feet were spattered with mud, as if she had been pulled out of wet soil like a deracinated plant.

  ‘Joe’s not here yet?’ Celia asked, staying outside, keeping her muddy shoes off the verandah mat. ‘Thing is, he should be here by now and I need to – I’m just wanting to know where Zoe is. You haven’t seen her? I checked down at the shearing shed and – anyway, don’t worry, I’ll . . .’

  She turned, flicking on the torch in her hand, and hurried away from the house.

  ‘Wait!’ Roza called after her. She hauled on the gumboots that lived on the verandah and picked up the torch hanging from a hook just inside the front door. It was a large black metal object, heavy enough for Roza to cosh a robber over the head – that is, if her old-woman arms had enough strength to cosh any robber.

  She headed outside after Celia. Roza wasn’t sure what was happening but it was clear Celia needed help. She followed the beam of Celia’s torch up the path to the farm and then into the orchard.

  Roza was much slower on her feet than the younger woman, especially so when galumphing in gumboots. But there were chances for Roza to close the gap when Celia stopped to look along the other pathways, the torch-beam startlingly bright in the dark orchard. By the time Roza caught up with Celia, they were almost at the cabin where the young man and his sister had been living. The gas lamp glowed golden through the front window.

  ‘Hello!’ Celia yelled out. ‘Sheena? Kieran? Have you seen Zoe?’

  From inside the cabin, Roza heard the scraping sound of something heavy sliding across the floor before the door opened a little way.

  Sheena poked only her head out. ‘Hi. No, I haven’t seen . . . sorry, no.’

  The young woman must have looked furtive to Celia. Guilty even. Suspecting Sheena was hiding Zoe behind her in the cabin, Celia lunged forward and with one decisive thump, pushed the door wide open.

  ‘Zoe? Are you in there?’

  Sheena was revealed to be bare-legged, wearing only a T-shirt, stretching the fabric down at the front to cover herself. Behind her, Josef was pulling his suit pants on, the rest of his clothes in a pile on the floor. He looked embarrassed, flustered, as you would well expect him to be when discovered in such a tableau.

  It was the kind of ludicrous scene that might ordinarily make Roza sigh indulgently or even laugh at the way most of us fumble around in the world, trying to grab what we hope will be chunks of happiness or pleasure. There was a bounce of surprise for Roza that her overly considered and straitlaced son had ever found his way into another woman’s bed, let alone the bunk bed of this prickly young woman. But right now was not the moment for amusement or speculation about Josef or moral interrogation of this bunk-bed farce. Celia’s panic about her daughter drowned out all other concerns.

  ‘Where’s Kieran?’ Celia asked Sheena. ‘Do you know where Zoe is?’

  ‘No, sorry, no, I don’t.’

  Sheena made a please wait gesture and ducked into the corner of the cabin to pull some shorts on under her T-shirt. At the same time, Josef, shirtless and barefoot, moved forward into the doorway.

  If Celia felt distressed or betrayed by what Joe had just done, she did not waste energy on that now. ‘Did you drive their car here?’ she asked him.

  ‘I did. I did. Just let me check something.’

  Celia avoided direct eye contact with him and Joe seemed relieved not to meet her gaze. And when he jumped over the front step to the ground, she lurched backwards to stay well clear of him, not wanting him to touch her as he brushed past.

  Joe ran off to check this ‘something’ and at the same time Sheena started blathering at Celia, urging her not to worry. Kieran would be back soon and then they were definitely leaving. All his belongings were here, packed, ready to leave as agreed. Sheena held out her palm with the car key Joe had brought, displaying it to Celia as proof they were really going. But Roza could see Sheena recognising, in this one crumbling moment, that she had misjudged this and that things had spun out of any control she ever imagined she had.

  Joe hurried back towards them, his suit trousers spattered with mud. ‘Sheena’s car – I parked it by the gate and now it’s gone.’

  ‘Does Kieran have spare keys to that car?’ Roza asked.

  Sheena groaned. ‘He doesn’t need any. My brother could hotwire an old car like that one in thirty seconds.’ She looked at the key in her palm as if that key was the problem and the reason she had been fooled.

  Joe handed Sheena her watch, which he’d found sitting on the gatepost. Then he turned to Celia. ‘Did Zoe say anything at all
? Did she take any clothes or money from the house?’

  Celia was silent, holding a lungful of air without exhaling. She was immobile, suspended in the last fraction of time before this slammed into her.

  ‘Celia,’ said Joe. ‘Listen to me – it’s fine. I’m sure it’ll be fine.’

  But Celia didn’t seem to hear him speaking to her.

  ‘I’ll find her,’ she said to herself, but aloud.

  Then she hurried away, into the orchard, with the torch aimed ahead of her like a weapon, its yellow beam slicing through the air.

  One thing Roza had never liked about Australia was the feeble excuse for seasons. In summer, grey–green leaves; and in winter, the grey–green leaves would still be stuck there on the trees. No one could call that a proper season. The year had no rhythm to swing a person through. For this reason she had been glad to settle in a fruit-growing area. Living around stone-fruit orchards, the leaves changed colour, and later, when the trees were bare, at least it looked like a winter.

  This winter was proving surprisingly cold, even in the first days of June. So when Roza contemplated leaving her warm house to walk up to Celia’s packing shed, she put on the alpaca sweater her son had brought back years ago from a trip to the United States. It was the lightest, softest sweater she had ever owned, yet almost inconceivably warming, as if spun from some magical substance. Joe had chosen a blood-red colour for his mother, knowing her tastes well, so this was a garment she was very happy to wear once the weather was cold enough.

  Fourteen-and-a-bit years ago, Roza and Sandor had been living in the yellow-painted house surrounded by orchards for little more than thirteen months when his body failed, the electrical circuits in his heart fried and frizzled. That was the problem with marrying a man so much older.

  Sandor had been a wonderful husband, if you overlooked his labile moods and the teeth-sucking noises. But Roza would never complain, because those were the kind of faults you should overlook when a man was as thoughtful, amusing and honourable as Sandor, and as generous and skilled a lover. They had been a blessed pair, no question. For many years she had adored him and he had adored her, each conscious they had rescued the other from the miserable lives into which they could easily have stumbled.