Fire in Summer

by JH Fletcher

  But Jeth had always been a great swimmer and laughed at the idea of trouble.

  ‘Please …,’ she persisted, until he surrendered, still laughing.

  ‘Okay …’

  They drove the length of the peninsula, they found a farm where they could buy strawberries, red and delicious, which they stuffed into mouths reddened by juice and love. They took a boat trip around an island where seals barked, mournfully. They found a cove with a reed-lined creek emptying into it, a deserted bungalow at the landward end.

  ‘Our dream house …’

  From the deck of the bungalow, Kath could see between the waving heads of reeds to the cream-coloured beach and, beyond, the hard line of the sapphire sea.

  The bungalow sprawled untidily, its windows staring seawards. The long veranda with its iron roof would give shade and coolness to the rooms; a brick chimney at one end showed where there was a fireplace to keep the inhabitants cosy in winter. She hadn’t liked it when Jeth had played games with the imaginary house, but now she was more confident of their relationship and herself. It was the beach house that Kath, raised far from the sea, had always dreamed of having.

  ‘It’s beautiful …’ Face shining, voice fervent.

  ‘Darn right,’ Jeth said. And turned to Walter, who had been exploring along the creek and who now had joined them. ‘Nice place, huh?’

  At first Kath had been nervous about the relationship between Jeth Douglas and her son. She had been afraid that Walter, nearly adult now, might resent the man who had supplanted his father, but there was no sign of it. She had feared that Jeth might try too hard, but he had not done that, either. Her two men, as she thought of them, had been totally relaxed with each other from the first.

  ‘We could go fishing,’ Walter said. ‘Have barbies on the beach.’

  Jeth laughed. ‘All we need is the house.’

  It was the last day of their holiday. They ate at a restaurant overlooking the sea. Kath and Jeth drank cold white wine beneath an awning that drummed peacefully in the wind, then they piled into the car for the two-hour journey back into the hills.

  ‘Glad to be back?’ Jeth asked as they unpacked.

  ‘Of course.’ And she was, yet the memory of the beach house, the gold and sapphire of sand and sea, had taken root in her heart.

  For several weeks Jeth was flat out. Even at weekends they hardly saw him.

  On the last Saturday in January, Walter had a cricket match. Kath ferried him to it, watched with other dutiful mothers while their warrior sons played the game with a ferocious determination not to be beaten. On this occasion Walter’s team won, for which Kath was grateful for her son’s sake, while wondering privately why anyone should care. Walter had arranged, without telling her, to stay over with a mate. She ticked him off for it; nevertheless ran him, and the other boy, back to the friend’s house. The boy’s mother confirmed that Walter had been expected.

  ‘As long as it’s okay with you …’

  They agreed that Kath would pick Walter up at ten the next morning. She drove home. With Jeth tied up at the Festival Centre and Walter busy with his friend, she had the rest of the day to herself. She had always placed a premium on her personal space but now, with all the time and space that anyone could want, didn’t know what to do with herself.

  She tidied the house, which needed no tidying. She poked around in the garden. There were a thousand jobs that needed doing; perversely, she had no interest in any of them. She gave up, made herself a cup of coffee, sat on the grass and thought. Time to consider where her life was going.

  The trip to the coast had unsettled her, making her realise that all this time she had been living under an illusion. She had been behaving as though she were on holiday, with reality something else. I have been playing games, she thought, remembering how she had once feared that Jeth might be doing the same. Playing at living my life.

  It wouldn’t do; their life had to be real or nothing. There was no place for games. Yet that was not fair; there was much more to the relationship than that. She loved Jeth, liked and respected him, too. For Hedley she had neither love nor liking nor respect.

  ‘And myself?’ she asked aloud, spilling doubts into the silent air. ‘What do I feel about myself?’

  A woman who had sworn an oath and betrayed it twice? What respect or liking could there be for her? She could not answer, not because she did not know, but because she did. Liking and respect were something else, indeed.

  It did not mean that she wanted to go back, even if Hedley were willing to take her. Never in a million years; even at Christmas, the most she had been willing to do was send cards: to her parents, with a note saying she was well and happy; to Emily, saying the same thing; to Beth, despite or perhaps because of her attitude at Maudie’s funeral. She had agonised for days over whether or not to send one to Hedley, fearful of stirring him up. In the end had decided that Walter was his son, that he had the right at least to receive a Christmas card from him. As far as possible, she wanted Hedley to feel no resentment, no hatred. She had got Walter to write it himself; at the last minute had sent him one of her own. From Kath. No message, no hint of hypocritical regret. Hopefully, the fact of sending it would constitute a peace offering, of sorts.

  The following Saturday Jeth got home late.

  ‘It’s nearly nine,’ Kath said. ‘What on earth have you been doing?’ Jeth mumbled about having one or two things to see to, which told her nothing.

  ‘Problems at work?’ she guessed.

  ‘Not exactly.’

  ‘The Premier coming to see how things are going?’

  Or worse, the Leader of the Opposition, a self-important gink with more front than Myers, always beefing about what a dreadful waste of money the project was, and why should we employ an American anyway.

  ‘Not a sniff of him.’

  Behind his words she could sense a smile. It maddened her. She walked to the open window, her heels going bang bang on the wooden floor. ‘A sheila,’ she informed the night, the pell-mell stream. ‘Leaves me slaving while he’s off with a sheila.’

  ‘What’s a woman for?’ Jeth agreed.

  ‘You’ve been up to something. Tell me!’

  ‘Nothing to tell.’ He yawned, looking at his watch. ‘Let’s go to bed.’

  ‘You’ve had nothing to eat.’

  Now he was really smiling. ‘First things first.’

  So to bed they went. There he tantalised her, most pleasurably, in quite another way. But still would not tell her what was up.

  ‘I know what’s up,’ she told him. ‘It’s what you’ve been doing I want to hear about.’ But he wouldn’t say, and soon her mind was on other things. Later, she slept.

  In the morning he said, ‘Let’s go for a drive.’

  ‘Walter’s got another cricket match.’

  ‘He says not to worry. You can give it a miss for once.’

  ‘I believe my son knows what’s going on more than I do,’ she complained. Which Jeth’s silence indicated might be the case.

  They drove south. Still he would do nothing to satisfy her curiosity. In the end she gave up. ‘Might as well enjoy myself, I suppose.’

  Towards the end of the journey, she began to wonder. The car bumped down a pitch-and-toss track through sand dunes, a dense wall of reeds on either side.

  ‘He’s bringing me here to cut my throat,’ Kath said. ‘Give him more time with his sheila.’

  ‘The only way to go,’ Jeth agreed. And stopped the car.

  She stared at him. ‘And now?’

  ‘We walk.’

  Along a meandering track they went, the heat beating at them from the reeds on either side. A soft boom came, was repeated. They reached a bend in the track. Jeth stopped, his hand on her arm.

  ‘There …’

  It was a house, looking out to sea.

  She turned to him, barely able to believe it. ‘That’s the place …’

  ‘You fell in love with. Right. Remember I told you I wan
ted a place for weekends? I managed to track down the owner. He wouldn’t sell, but I’ve taken a three-year lease on it. Since you liked it so much.’

  ‘And that’s what you’ve been up to?’

  ‘Getting the furniture in was the hardest part.’

  All this he had done, to surprise her. Because he had known it would give her pleasure. She wanted to hug him to death. She wanted to laugh, shout out loud, weep. Because he cared for her so much. Then thought, three years … The Festival Centre was due for completion within sixteen months. Was he planning to stay in Australia afterwards? From a career point of view, it would make no sense.

  Another thought: insidious, terrible. This wonderful house that she had wanted so much … Was it intended to solace her after he was gone?

  The idea was ludicrous. She knew it, knew it. He had given her no reason at all to imagine such a thing. Yet, now it had sunk its hook in her, the idea would not go away. It would be something for the small hours, when she lay awake and wondered …

  Married, she thought. We must get married — which would first mean divorce. She knew how much Hedley would hate that, but perhaps he could be persuaded to wash his hands of the wife who had betrayed him. Of course Jeth had never spoken of marriage at all.

  He was standing beside her now, a pleased expression on his face, waiting for her response to the surprise that he had planned to give her so much pleasure. She threw her arms about him, hugging and laughing, seeking with every fibre of her being to bury doubt beneath the avalanche of tears that came suddenly to overwhelm her. Which delighted and, perhaps, embarrassed him. He offered his handkerchief, awkwardly; she mopped her face; they walked down the track towards the house. They climbed the steps to the echoing deck. Jeth dug a key from his pocket and opened the door. Turned to her, smiling. ‘May I?’

  She found herself swept up in his strong arms. Her shoes fell somewhere. Two steps and they were inside the house. Through the closed shutters, the sunlight patterned the walls with golden light. He deposited her on her feet. He bowed. ‘Madam …’

  It was touching, delightful, totally inappropriate. ‘You never did that at the mill,’ she pointed out.

  ‘The mill was mine, before you lived there. This is ours.’

  Ours … The idea filled her heart. ‘Show it to me, then,’ she said.

  He threw back the shutters; the warmth of the day came in, and Kath heard the thunder of surf along the beach. She inspected the furniture he had bought. An oak dining table and chairs, shiny with the patina of years; a settee in dark grey fabric patched with cushions in orange and green; a glass-fronted bookcase, for the moment empty; a desk, another old piece, with a lamp upon it.

  ‘Oil lamps,’ Jeth warned. ‘There’s no electricity.’

  What looked like antique rugs covered the floor. Sand, Kath thought. Unless we’re careful they’ll get covered in sand. And began to think practical thoughts about doormats and places for boots.

  There was nothing old about the two bedrooms. The beds were new; each room had a chest and hanging space for clothes. Both were altogether perfect.

  ‘The bathroom’s a wreck,’ Jeth said apologetically. Not quite, but nearly. A clanking cistern, a stained bath with clawed, rusting feet. The mirror’s silvering looked to have been under assault by the salty air for years; now the battle was nearly lost.

  ‘It doesn’t matter,’ Kath told him.

  Nor did it. The plumbing worked, the bath held water; it would serve.

  The kitchen was better, if basic: lop-eared cupboards, a refrigerator from the Ark, an almost respectable stove, both fired by gas.

  ‘Pity I won’t be able to cook anything,’ Kath said.

  ‘Why not?’

  ‘Without my bits and pieces …’

  ‘Look in the trunk of the car. I brought a few things with us. I thought you might need them.’

  All this.

  ‘We have two houses,’ Kath said. ‘We’re rich.’ As though richness could be measured by such things.

  They fetched the bits and pieces from the car and dumped them in the house. They drove five miles to the nearest town, where Kath bought bits and pieces of her own: lamb, strawberries, wine, some potatoes and broccoli. They came back, stacked their purchases in the wiggle-waggle cupboards, went down to the beach. Her back to the rollers, Kath stared at the house they had just left. She could barely see it amid the reeds, but the feeling it gave warmed her heart just as its timbers had warmed her feet when Jeth had put her down after carrying her inside.

  Hand in hand they walked through the gushing waters of the creek. The sand lapped against a sandstone cliff, the sea foamed amid a tumble of shining rocks. Gulls cried overhead; there was the strong, pleasant smell of seaweed; they were utterly alone.

  Kath turned to Jeth, took his hands in her own. ‘Thank you for my house.’

  They went back. The setting sun threw huge shadows across the sand and the reeds tinkled like silver bells in the breeze.

  On the deck Jeth turned to her. ‘Fancy sleeping over?’ More than anything she wanted it, but that was impossible.

  ‘Walter —’

  Jeth smiled. ‘Taken care of. He’s staying with that friend of his. I said I’d pick him up in the morning, bring him down for the day.’ He held her close; she felt his breath in her hair. ‘Tonight is ours.’

  She lit the oven, which worked all right. She put in the lamb, some peeled potatoes. ‘God knows how it’ll turn out,’ she said.

  It turned out fine. By the time the meal was ready it was late, but they were in no hurry, after all. It might have been roasted peacock, the way Kath bore in the lamb. She set it on the table, Jeth carved it with many a flourish. With it they ate potatoes and broccoli. They munched the tart-sweet strawberries, they drank the wine. It was a feast in a million. And all the time, on the record player that Kath had not even noticed, Jeth played the violin concerto by Sibelius, an eerie, fine-drawn ecstasy that complemented the distant roaring of the surf and drew Kath’s soul from her body.

  ‘Leave the dishes,’ masterful Jeth commanded. Which Kath, obedient both to him and her own inclination, did.

  They lay together upon the new bed in the old house that was newly theirs. They made love as they had so often before, and it was familiar and new, as it always was. Beyond the open shutters the sea sang its rhythmic song.

  Their night, indeed.

  The next morning, as it was getting light, they went down to the beach. There was no-one else at all. They stripped and plunged naked into the sea, the water warmer than the pre-dawn air. After a few minutes they came out, rubbed themselves glowing-dry with the towels they had brought with them, then went back up the track to the house, where the congealed remains of the lamb greeted them, reproachfully.

  ‘I’m that hungry I could eat it in one go,’ Jeth declared.

  ‘Washing up first,’ Kath said, her turn to give orders.

  Jeth grumbled but obeyed. Everything tidied away, they breakfasted, not on cold lamb, but on the eggs and bacon that Kath had also bought on her foray to the shop. They went to fetch Walter, all the way to the hills and back again, a four-hour round journey for just a few hours here again, but it was worth it. It meant they were all together in their own house.

  A family like other families, Kath thought. Or close.

  29

  JULIA

  1999

  When she got back to the medical rooms in Kapunda, Julia Anderson had no time to think of Hedley or Kath Warren or anything at all beyond the day’s seemingly endless list of patients.

  Everyone said the same: it was impossible to get doctors to work in the bush. Kapunda was hardly the bush, but it was undeniably country and the same problems existed. To begin with, Julia had not been bothered. I am a competent GP, she told herself. I can handle anything they can throw at me.

  Within a week she had discovered that being a competent GP was not enough, that she was expected to be a specialist in every problem from dermatitis to gyn
aecology, from colds in the head to slipped discs. Coming from the district, she knew that her patients would say little and expect everything. If they didn’t get it, no-one would complain — not to her — but the numbers waiting to see her would dwindle while Don Carlyle’s workload would go through the roof. There were disadvantages, too, in being local; some would be reluctant to discuss their symptoms with someone they’d known as a kid — who some, no doubt, thought was still a kid.

  Some kid, she thought. Married, divorced and not even thirty. The business of being divorced continued to reproach her. Such a waste of time, of emotion and energy. What was worse, you could never simply go back and start again: something of yourself always remained in the country of might-have-been. Failure diminished you, whatever form it took, with marriage failure probably the biggest catastrophe of all.

  Twenty-nine, she thought. I have no business to be so battle-scarred at such an age.

  But she was too busy to worry about it much; was determined not to let it worry her at all. All that was behind her. Despite the problems, she was glad to be back. This was still her place. All she had to do was make sure there were no more false starts, now she was here.

  At the end of the day, she closed the door, wearily, behind the last of her patients and drove home. The cottage was ten kilometres out of town. It was small but adequate; wild parties were not on her agenda. It adjoined a nature reserve, where the scrub was as it had been since before the first settlers. There were kangaroos and many birds: magpies and galahs and Adelaide rosellas flaunting their gaudy plumage. There was peace, the opportunity to take the edges off the day.

  Every evening, as soon as she got home, she changed into shorts and boots and went out to walk amid the trees. She did so now, feeling the tensions of the day drain from her. Great therapy, she thought, and grinned. Even here, by herself, she thought like a doctor. Not surprising, when it had been such a battle to become one in the first place.