Fire in Summer

by JH Fletcher

  The only thing you could be sure of was how he felt about the land, she thought. That had always been his obsession, the jail that had imprisoned both him and the rest of them all their lives.

  She sighed, thinking might-have-beens. She had never been able to make up her mind whether she loved the land or hated it. Without it things would have been different, certainly, but that didn’t mean they couldn’t have been happy. A lot happier than they had been, probably. Look at Wilf. The acres that his mother had left him had lain at the root of the terrible quarrel that had divided the family all those years ago. He had done nothing with them, or with his life, yet he had survived, had been happy, in his irresponsible way. With less greed, she thought, we might have been happy, too. But to think of Hedley without greed was like trying to breathe without air: something against nature.

  I’ve had no life with him, Kath thought. Despite the smart ideas I had when we started, I’ve been eaten up, like everyone else. Yet it is also true that I have known fulfilment. Not everyone can claim as much.

  She turned away, letting the curtain fall back across the window. In summer, you had to do what you could to keep out the heat, yet now the plunge of shadow seemed symbolic. Denying the light that inundated the landscape like a fiery sea was, in part at least, like turning her back upon life itself.

  She had to get back to Hedley, to tend to the needs of the man with whom she had lived separately for fifty-four years.

  In the early days she had told herself that she would use guile to take control both of her life and of him, had succeeded to the point where she and her husband had remained always apart yet never free. Now, at the end of her life, she had discovered that she needed him, after all. Not out of any upsurge of love or even affection, but because their never-ending battle had filled her life so utterly that she dreaded victory. Without the battle there would be nothing left.

  That is all there is, she thought. As for me … after seventy-seven years of life, fifty-eight of marriage, two children, four grandchildren, two great-grandchildren, it is as though I have been nothing at all.

  Outside the window the heat was rising. The dust disturbed by the doctor’s car had settled. The dust lifts, she thought, and falls back to the earth again. Just like us. All of us dust: isn’t that what the Bible says? Dust to dust? But a person is more than that. We think, feel, are aware of our existence. Yet still, like the dust, we return to the land that made us. The folds and creases of the earth, the windmills and waterholes, creeks and paddocks. Rich country, hereabouts. Regular rainfall, so precious in this the driest of continents. Most of the families in this district have been here for generations, shaping and forming the land, being shaped and formed in turn by this earth that never lets go, once it has laid its spell upon us. Even we who seek to deny it, who turn our backs, seldom escape forever.

  Look at me.

  Kath shook her head and went back down the corridor to the bedroom smelling of sickness, of age, of rancour impotent and unrelenting. Rancour, she thought. That sums him up, all right, but there is nothing I can do about it. Hedley has forgotten nothing, forgiven nothing, but it is too late now to change the pattern of our lives.

  At the bottom of the hill, the Henschke boys were building a new windmill. After she’d finished breakfast, Kath came out of the house, hung some washing on the line and stood watching the distant figures, hearing the sound of their voices, the clank of steel and roar of the tractor as they hauled the tripod into position.

  If Hedley hadn’t been sick he’d have been down there with them. She thought of her husband in bed in the house behind her, Julia Anderson telling him he ought to be in hospital, and decided that the grandchildren would have to be told. There was nothing they could do but they had the right.

  Danielle would find out for herself soon enough, of course. Yesterday evening she’d said she was going up to Daley’s first thing to check out a couple of sheep that she’d thought looked a bit crook, but she’d be here directly. The prospect of phoning the others — Rebecca and Craig in Adelaide, Michael in his scruffy cottage on the other side of the range — did not thrill her but it would have to be done.

  As always, Rebecca would be the worst. To Rebecca, life had always been a conspiracy. She had everything that mattered to her — money, lifestyle, position — yet behaved as though she had nothing. If Kath didn’t tell her that Hedley was sick, she would assume that the family was ganging up against her. It was all very wearisome.

  I’ll phone her today, Kath decided. She’ll be so afraid of missing out on something that she’ll probably hop in the car and drive up here straightaway, but I can’t help that. It won’t do the slightest good; by the time she gets here, Hedley will probably be back in the paddocks, but at least she won’t be able to complain that we’ve kept her in the dark.

  One good thing: it was term time, so she would probably have to leave the kids behind. Kath certainly hoped so. It was a sad thing to say about your only great-grandchildren, but Rebecca’s sons were obnoxious brats. Giles and Spencer — there were names for you.

  The truth was that Kath found all Rebecca’s family painful in the extreme. Her husband, for a kick-off. Dean was a real toffee bloke, the son of Lady Olivia Bennett. Oodles of money and an Adelaide Hills background. He’d read law overseas, had been admitted to the bar at Lincoln’s Inn, in London. I’ll bet he loves himself in that poncy little wig, Kath thought maliciously.

  Rebecca had loved it, too. She’d met him at some do in Adelaide, made a play for him at once. To Kath’s amazement she had hooked and landed him in no time, which must have pleased Olivia Bennett no end. Of course Giles had been on the way by then, which had no doubt helped. Falling pregnant would have been Rebecca’s way of twisting the old lady’s arm. Lady Bennett would have had grander prospects in mind for her son, but ‘Young Barrister Abandons Pregnant Girlfriend’ wouldn’t have looked good, and there were papers that would have printed it, no worries.

  The wedding had been held in the grounds of the Bennetts’s Aldgate residence. The real chardonnay set, all flowery dresses and hats that the mid-north wouldn’t have been seen dead in. Lady Bennett had been gracious to her daughter-in-law’s mother, on whom she had no plans to call.

  Kath dreaded Rebecca coming here — that strident voice, like a platoon in hobnailed boots marching over everyone; those eyes, pricing everyone down to their last dollar — but it would be a hundred times worse if she didn’t.

  Craig would be easier, but Michael and Danielle were likely to cause problems of their own. My family, she thought. Oh dear.

  Let’s get it over with. With heavy heart, Kath went to the phone.

  Rebecca Bennett had always been fond of riding but, when a friend had suggested they should hire a couple of nags and go for a trot in the park, she had turned her down. Mindful of her image with the friends she intended to have, Rebecca had made up her mind that she would take up riding again only after they had moved up into the Hills, where there would be room for horses of their own.

  With luck she shouldn’t have too long to wait. Three months before, a stroke had knocked the starch out of her mother-in-law. Now Lady Bennett was sinking a little every day, always trying to persuade Rebecca to bring the family to share the big house with her.

  ‘There’s plenty of room. And it’ll give me a chance to see something of the boys …’

  A far cry from the old days and her vituperative opposition to Rebecca’s becoming a member of the family at all. That was a long time ago, but Rebecca had an excellent memory and neither forgot nor forgave. If the old bitch wanted a lackey to help her die in comfort, she could look somewhere else.

  ‘When she’s six feet under, we’ll move. Until then, we’re staying where we are.’

  The horses could wait.

  She looked at her watch. Ten o’clock. She’d better get a move on. She’d arranged to meet a friend for coffee; the woman was the daughter of a judge, so it might be important. She got up from the desk where
she wrote her letters — another thing she’d learned, to keep in touch with people with clout — and went into the bedroom. Beyond the picture window the sea reflected sunlight but Rebecca did not waste time looking at it; it was enough to know it was there. The place had set them back nearly half a million bucks; for that money, the view ought to be good.

  Paying off the mortgage was a drain, despite Dean’s income, and it didn’t help that they could get away with hardly any of it for tax. Dean was always complaining that they should move somewhere more affordable, but she took no notice. She knew how important image was, cherished the envy she saw in their friends’ eyes whenever they had a party.

  When Grandpa died, they’d pay off the mortgage from her share of the estate. With any luck Lady B would also be out of the way by then, and they would be able to move. They would still keep this place, of course. It was so convenient, whenever they wanted to spend a night in town. In any case, the way prices were going, it was likely to turn into a positive gold mine; it would be madness to get rid of it now.

  The phone rang.

  Damn.

  Stripped to her panties, taking from the cupboard the dress she was planning to wear, Rebecca was tempted to ignore it, but you never knew who it might be. She put the dress on the bed and picked up the extension.

  ‘Rebecca Bennett …’

  It wasn’t likely there’d be more than one Rebecca on this number but, since her marriage, it was the way she had always done it. The Bennett connection was important, after all.

  ‘It’s Grandma …’

  What a time to choose! She checked her watch. ‘I’m in a hurry, Grandma —’

  ‘It’s your grandfather.’

  At once Rebecca was all attention. ‘What about him?’

  Kath gave her a rambling story of how he had woken up in the middle of the night feeling bad, how they had sent for the doctor, how —

  ‘Has he had a heart attack or not?’

  ‘Not this time, but Doctor Anderson said —’

  ‘Why are you phoning, if there’s nothing wrong with him?’

  ‘Of course there’s something wrong with him. I told you, he’s in bed.’ Kath sounded quite put out. ‘I thought you would want to know, but if you’re too busy —’

  Whoops. Whatever you do, don’t fall out with them now. Now’s the time you should be showing how much you love them.

  Rebecca ladled concern into her voice. ‘Of course I’m not too busy. I wanted to be sure how sick he was, that’s all. I’ll drive up tomorrow, Grandma. I’ve got to dash now — kids to organise, that sort of thing — but I promise I’ll be with you in the morning. Now,’ she said in her sincere voice, ‘I don’t want you to worry. Okay? Anything you want, be sure and give me a ring.’

  She put down the phone, thinking. Culpepper told me the farm’s worth five mil at least, the prices they’re getting in that part of the world. Say four, after paying off the loans. And I’m entitled to a quarter. She had done the sum a hundred times, but it never lost its charm. A million bucks. Wow! She felt like dancing. A million dollars shone more brightly than the sea.

  Danielle would want to hang on to the place but she knew one or two things about her kid sister that might come in handy, if it came to a fight. Hugo Welke … Wouldn’t Grandpa be charmed, if he heard about him?

  Craig shouldn’t be a problem. Mr Big of the Adelaide radio world had his life sorted out already.

  As for Michael … After the run-in he’d had with Grandpa, he probably wouldn’t be getting anything, anyway. In which case her share might be more than a million, as much as a million and a half, maybe.

  They’d sell the place, stick Grandma in a home somewhere, even buy her one of those little units in town if they couldn’t talk her out of it.

  Dean and I will be set for life.

  Out of habit she checked herself in the mirror before putting on her dress. Not bad, if you didn’t look too closely. Boobs a bit on the small side, perhaps, but when you got older that could be a blessing. She had one or two stretch marks, not enough to notice except up close, but Dean swore he found them attractive.

  ‘Make you look mature,’ he’d said. ‘I like mature women.’

  That’d be right. Rebecca thought he’d have married his mother, given half a chance.

  She slipped her dress over her head, patted her hair, straightened her bodice, checked herself for the final time in the mirror, and went out to charm the judge’s daughter. Who might be willing to put in a word.

  ‘You are the most disgusting brute …’

  Not that Danielle was complaining. She lay on the tumbled bed and smiled up at Hugo Welke, unshaven jowl and all, as he bent over her. His damn beard had ripped her half to death during the night, but that didn’t matter. Far from it. She felt like a ploughed field and loved it.

  The room was pretty ripe but she loved that, too. The smell of sex had always turned her on. Secrecy was the same; making love was great but to do it secretly, with someone forbidden, made it even better. Hugo was forbidden territory on two counts: he was the grandson of Grandpa’s greatest enemy, and he had a wife of his own. The biggest turn-on in the book.

  The Warrens and Welkes had been at war as long as anyone could remember. The seeds of the quarrel were buried so deep in history that no-one had a clue what it had been about, but it was certain to have been over land. Like everything in his life, Hedley’s hatreds were based four-square upon the dirt, the only thing that had ever mattered to him.

  Danielle could relate to that. A true farmer loved and hated it, cursed and worshipped it, would never be at home anywhere but on the acres that were his property and the reason for his existence. Not many would be capable of putting it into those words, of course, but that was the size of it.

  Danielle felt the same, but there was a problem. Even in 1999, the mid-north didn’t like its women to have such feelings. Most blokes would agree women were handy to have around the place but the idea that they might share the avaricious kinship with the soil that lay at every true farmer’s heart … There weren’t many who would feel comfortable with that.

  Danielle had read that some of the women students in Teheran, forced to cover themselves in black robes, had got their own back on the men who made the rules by going into the city wearing nothing at all underneath. No-one could see, of course, but the women themselves had known and that had been enough. She could relate to that, too; liked to think that in their place she’d have done the same.

  That was one of the reasons she had picked Hugo out of the pack: because society, which meant men, had decreed that he was off-limits. Hugo was her nakedness under the robe.

  Now she smiled and reached up to touch his cheek, coaxingly.

  ‘My God,’ he said, ‘aren’t you satisfied yet?’

  She pouted. ‘It’s your own fault. If you didn’t make me feel so great …’

  Long ago, Danielle had discovered that men liked being told how marvellous they were, that flattery was a key to almost any door. She had learned it first with her grandfather, who despised everyone but, at least, women no more than men.

  ‘Show me, Grandpa,’ she would say, and the old man, flattered, had shown her. Over the years she had learned many things. She knew how to manage the land as well as the men who thought they owned it, how to handle the men stupid enough to believe they might own her. No-one owned her, although Hugo, who fancied himself, might imagine he did. The more fool him, in that case.

  She gave up on his cheek, transferred her attentions elsewhere, while Hugo sighed and stirred and, at last, obeyed.

  ‘There,’ she said, smiling up at him as once again he sweated and groaned above her, ‘isn’t that great?’

  Although her eyes, too, were rolling in her head by the time they finished. With Hugo like a collapsed sack at her side, she felt the sunburst of nerve ends exultant and, for the moment, at peace.

  As the sun flooded through the window of Hugo’s cottage, other priorities summoned her. She p
unched his shoulder. ‘Let me get up. I’ve work to do.’

  Twenty minutes later, in jeans and plaid shirt, Akubra on the back of her head, Danielle was out of there. She climbed behind the wheel of the ute, fired the motor and rode it like a brumby down the rutted track that led cross-country to Daley’s. She checked out the suspect ewes, found they were fine after all. An hour later she was on her way between paddocks bursting with ripening grain, hardly a hint of green left in them, to the holding yards where fat lambs would later be loaded for Gepps Cross.

  She drew up outside the buildings and killed the motor. The house was still but from the gum scrub came an explosion of galahs, pink and grey and raucous. She climbed out of the ute, slamming the door behind her as she always did, bent and ran her fingers through the dirt of the paddock, as she always did. Rituals …

  Fifty metres up the hill from the house, there was an iron fence with a gate in it. Behind the fence was the yard where they penned the lambs. She shoved open the gate and was about to go through to the milling sheep when her grandmother came out of the house and called her.

  Michael awoke to a king-sized hangover and the bimbo he’d enticed back from the pub the previous night.

  Today it was an airhead called Kylie, a seventeen-year-old from the High School who boasted how she’d been handed around half Year Twelve, to say nothing of some of the teachers. Michael looked at the flesh that in morning’s brutal light already looked stale and over-used and thought, God, I must have hung on a ripe one last night.

  He could always gauge how drunk he had been by what he found on his pillow in the morning.

  Certainly this one was not worth the blazing row he’d get if Jo found out what he’d been up to. Not that she had any right to complain; at this hour of the morning, she was probably still tucked up in bed with her husband.

  First thing: let’s clear the decks.

  Kylie was eager for another session, but now even the smell of her made him want to puke. Deaf to protest, he bundled her up and out of the cottage. Kylie was fit to be tied, her mouth like a sewer.