Fire in Summer

by JH Fletcher

  ‘I’ll buy you one.’

  Kath thought, Perhaps music — Bruckner, Beethoven, Gabrieli, Wagner — will bring me back, in time, to reason. It will become a substitute for the death that, with Jeth’s death, has taken me, too. While the Shostakovitch will remind me, always, of the gateway to life. In time, perhaps music will even let me come to terms with what has happened, give me the strength to face the future.

  One more thing. ‘Sex.’

  She saw that he resented her saying such a thing, was even embarrassed by it, perhaps.

  ‘What about it?’

  ‘That’s all over. Okay?’

  He bared his teeth. ‘Another man’s leavings? You think I would?’ But had a condition of his own. ‘No other blokes. That’s over, too. All right?’

  That would be no sacrifice. On the contrary, it was a source of pride. ‘You have just said it. I am another man’s leavings. What should I want with anyone else?’

  Not much of a basis for a new start but, with tolerance or indifference, it might perhaps be enough.

  36

  WILF

  1958–1959

  By April 1958 Wilf and Juniper had settled into a more peaceful relationship. The affair, if that was what it was, had now been going on for two years. Some nights they did not make love at all, but talked or listened to the wireless.

  Like a real married couple, Dulcie said, and grinned, with teeth.

  Not every night, of course.

  ‘You haven’t got any books,’ Wilf said once. ‘I’d have thought you’d have hundreds, educated tart like you.’

  Oh dear. ‘I will not have that language.’

  But made it up to him later, thin legs hugging him tight.

  On the second anniversary of the day they had first gone to bed together — consummated our love, as Juniper called it — she put on a fancy meal to celebrate. At which she produced a book.

  ‘I want you to read it.’

  It had a gaudy cover, like a child’s painting. A bloke with a beard, and sheep. Wilf turned it cautiously, as though it might bite. ‘What is it?’

  ‘Take it with you. Let me know what you think.’

  It was a religious text, put out by some revivalist mob in Melbourne. Jesus and the little lambs. He read it; well, sort of. ‘What’s it got to do with me?’

  ‘He is the saviour of the world.’

  ‘Right.’

  ‘He saves all sinners. He will save you, too, Wilfred, if you allow him.’

  Wilf wasn’t into sin. Although, no doubt, he had committed his share.

  ‘Kneel down, Wilfred. I want you to pray with me.’

  Anything for a peaceful life. He did so, awkwardly. But was not prepared to put up with it for long. ‘That’s me finished,’ he told Dulcie when he got home. ‘Barmy as a bandicoot, that one.’

  For a week he did not go near her. Eventually she phoned. Dulcie put the phone on the side, went to find Wilf, who was outside the door, enjoying his gasper.

  ‘For you.’

  ‘Who is it?’

  ‘Lover lady.’

  ‘Strewth! Tell her I’ve bloody emigrated —’

  ‘Tell her yourself.’

  He gave her an unfriendly look, but shambled to the phone. ‘Yeah?’

  ‘You have been avoiding me.’

  ‘Course I haven’t. I’ve been crook, that’s all it was. Bit of the old flu. How can you think anything else?’

  ‘You are better now?’

  ‘Right as rain.’

  ‘I’ll expect you tonight, then. I’ll be waiting.’

  A click as the phone went down. Now wait a minute. ‘I’m not her bloody slave boy!’

  Dulcie, who didn’t have to put up with it, was more tolerant. ‘Just do it, okay?’

  ‘Bloody oath. I wish we’d never started on this caper. She’ll probably outlive the pair of us, anyway.’

  ‘Not her. Take a good look at her next time. Skinny as a rail. And her mother died young: cancer. Trust me; she’ll never make old bones. Don’t worry; she loves you like you’re always saying, you’ll get that land yet.’

  Dulcie made it sound ghoulish, like making love to a corpse. More than ever, Wilf wished he’d never got involved. ‘I damn well should. I’ve worked hard enough for it.’

  She cackled, but with an underpinning of resentment. ‘Work? That what you call it?’

  When he got to the unit Juniper was waiting, as she had promised. In a long white robe covering her from her neck to her ankles. Skinny to start with, she seemed to have lost more weight than ever. No bulges, front or back. If Wilf hadn’t known better, he’d have thought there was nothing inside the robe at all.

  She clasped his hands in her long thin fingers. ‘Pray with me.’

  ‘Not into this praying caper.’ Five hundred acres or not, Wilf had had enough.

  Her eyes were ardent, glowing. He doubted she’d heard a word he said. ‘We shall enter into the sacrament. We shall kneel together before the throne. We shall find grace.’

  She took his hand, with stately walk led him into the bedroom where they had spent many happy hours. Which now, he saw, she had turned into some kind of shrine. Red cloth hung in drapes along the walls. At one end, a table covered in white, with a plain iron cross. The scent of incense. What she’d done with the bed, he’d no idea.

  She turned to him. ‘A sacrificial offering,’ she murmured rapturously. He heard the click in her voice as she breathed in and out. ‘Join me before the altar.’

  She knelt, drawing him down beside her. Wilf, going along reluctantly. She freed him, lifted both her hands in the air, fingers straight, palms facing the white-clad table. In a rhythmic chant she declaimed, ‘Behold sinners come to present themselves before you. Come to make our sacrifice. To receive your absolution.’

  Silence. For so long that Wilf risked a sideways glance. Saw Juniper’s ardent eyes fixed upon the invisible, a slight smile parting her pale lips. ‘He hears…’ The whisper so soft that Wilf barely caught it.

  She raised her voice abruptly. ‘We are here, oh God!’

  Wilf, startled, flinched.

  ‘We are clean, for you have made us clean. We are whole, for you have made us whole. We shall make our sacrament of love and fulfilment because it is pleasing in your sight. Two sinners, cleansed of sin by your command.’

  She turned to him, smiling, smiling. She took his hand and stood, drawing him up beside her. Again she released him, raising her hands to undo the buttons at her neck. Freed, the white robe slid to her ankles. As he had suspected, she was naked. He stared, aghast. She had indeed lost weight. Wasted breasts, ribs staring through the waxy skin; she was as scraggy as an old chook in a broiler. In a few weeks, she had grown old.

  He remembered what Dulcie had said earlier that evening. Cancer … Looked like it, at that. He should have felt sympathy for her, lost both in body and mind, but did not. All he felt was revulsion.

  She reached out octopus arms, seeking to draw him close. ‘Love me,’ she said, breath clicking, clicking in her throat. ‘Love me before the Lord.’

  As he said to Dulcie later, no way could he have gone along with that.

  ‘What did you say?’

  ‘Give her some bullshit about not having got over the flu.’

  Dulcie, up the spout for the fifth time and out of temper with Wilf and the world, said, ‘You’ll have to make it up with her later.’

  Wilf shook his head. ‘I’m not going back,’ he said. ‘Not now, not ever. Never mind the bloody land. Let her do what she likes with it. I’ve had enough.’

  For days they waited, scared that she would phone again, or write, or stop him in the street. One day she did. Wilf was on his way to the pub when Juniper buttonholed him on a quiet corner. ‘Good morning, Wilfred.’

  His eyes skidded like greased ball bearings. ‘How ya going?’

  ‘What happened the other night…’

  ‘Don’t matter. Forget it.’

  ‘You misunderstand me. Th
e Lord has spoken to me. We must not see each other again.’

  He would have done a cartwheel there and then if he’d been sure she meant it. ‘What, never?’

  ‘It will be hard for you, I know.’ Bony fingers caressed his hand; he flinched. ‘You could not pray with me because the Devil has stolen your heart.’ She smiled a saintly smile, prepared to forgive the human frailty that had railed the test of perfection. ‘I shall remember you with kindness, always. And you will have something to remember me by, too.’

  Wilf shuffled uneasy feet. ‘That right?’

  ‘I hear Dulcie is expecting our child …’

  ‘Our child?’ Funny-farm time. ‘Now hang about …’

  ‘The Lord has decreed I cannot bear children. Instead he has given it to Dulcie to nurture for me. It will be the child of our love.’

  Barmy as a bandicoot, indeed.

  Again she smiled, beatifically. ‘I want you to do something for me.’

  At that moment he would have promised everything.

  ‘I want him called Stephen. After the first of the martyrs.’ Still smiling, she touched his hand again. And was gone.

  Wilf stood, the sweat pumping beneath his shirt. Bloody hell.

  Juniper continued to operate the shop. She never contacted him but for a long time Wilf didn’t trust his luck, convinced she’d never let him break free that easily. ‘I feel like she’s haunting me. One of these days …’

  Yet, with time, began to breathe more easily. Maybe it was finished, after all.

  The baby was born at the end of 1959, plonk in the middle of a December heatwave.

  ‘That’s your lot,’ Dulcie said when Wilf came to see her, and the baby. ‘Tie a knot in it from now on.’ Her face was blotched and saggy; she looked like she’d been through the ringer. I wouldn’t be a woman for quids. Thought she looked great, all the same.

  He grinned at her. ‘Your loss,’ he said. Had something to ask her. ‘What do you reckon to the name Stephen?’

  A bit fancy, but the way Dulcie was feeling, she wouldn’t have cared if he’d wanted to call him Cyril. ‘If that’s what you want …’

  They organised the christening. The priest who had taken over from Arch Griffiths knew all about Wilf and his antics; the whole town had known for years. Face lemon-sour, he had agreed grudgingly to conduct the service, but took every opportunity to voice his disapproval of Wilf and Dulcie and their gang of rowdy brats. Who never, never came to church except when they wanted something.

  A family affair, except the posh side of the family didn’t come, although Kath sent a note. ‘Stuff them,’ Dulcie said.

  Emily came, though, bright as a button, sixty-five going on twenty. Gave the baby a silver cup she’d picked up from one of the jewellers in Gawler, drank tea, scoffed a couple of sandwiches, spoke to everyone, disappeared back to the town unit where she’d lived ever since she’d moved out of the farm.

  ‘Couldn’t stand your bloody brother, that’s what it is,’ Dulcie told Wilf, with malicious relish. Not for the first time, she told herself she must go and pay a call on the old lady, who might be lonely. She knew she never would, but the promise made her feel good.

  There was one unexpected present. A prayer book, bound in a white silk cover, with a gold cross embroidered upon it. A plain card:

  To Stephen

  On the occasion of his christening

  From J. Harris

  Who had not been invited.

  37

  JULIA

  1979–1998

  After her walk, Julia came back to the cottage that she had selected in part because of its distance from the medical rooms in Kapunda. Although it seemed that memories would allow her little peace, even here.

  She went indoors and ran herself a bath. While she waited for the water, her thoughts reverted to Craig Warren and the animosity that for all her life had divided her side of the family from his.

  I was the only one who ever got to visit the farm, she thought. The only one who, with Craig, might have brought both sides together.

  Funny how it was always Craig, from the first. Even as little kids, after Dad dropped me off at the gate, we made a twosome.

  There was that mulberry tree in summer, and us stuffing our faces with the dark, sweet fruit, while the juice stained our chins and the low-hanging branches enclosed us in a little green-shaded room …

  There was a pony that his father had bought. We used to ride him in the back paddock until his grandfather decided they’d try canola there. Magnet, that was his name. I never heard what happened to him. Probably he just died, like so much else. Because it was all right while we were kids, but the family feud was a fact of life and, as soon as we started to grow up, there was no way we could avoid it. Rebecca, for one, was always going to make sure of that.

  The bath was ready. Julia stripped off and climbed into the grateful warmth. She lay back amid a swirl of steam, living once again the moments of hostility that, even now, burned like brands in her memories of childhood.

  ‘Why do you keep coming here?’ Rebecca at fourteen, herself nine. ‘We don’t want you. None of us. You know that?’

  Craig trying to stick up for her but, at ten, lacking the firepower to deal with a fourteen-year-old.

  ‘Your Granddad’s a drunk. You’ll probably be one yourself, when you grow up. It’s hereditary, you know.’

  An accusation that Julia, not knowing what the word meant, was quick to deny.

  ‘We don’t have anything to do with drunks, in this family.’

  After all these years, Rebecca’s spiteful words still rang, tinnily. Julia reached for the soap amid a slush and sludge of water. Rebecca always was a bitch, she thought. In those days it was just ganging up against an outsider, but I doubt she’s changed much now.

  Things had got no better as they grew older — quite the reverse. By then Julia had developed as a potential threat, because Grandpa Hedley liked her. If Julia married Craig, which by then had seemed a possibility, it had not been out of the question that Hedley might decide to mention her in his will. So Rebecca and Danielle had combined in the hopes of driving her out, while Michael, being Michael, had been happy to go along for the ride.

  ‘Julia’s going to Uni.’ Rebecca eager to inform the world. ‘To be a doctor. I wonder she’s still willing to talk to the rest of us.’

  A bit of cheek, coming from her. At twenty-four, Rebecca had her sights on Dean Bennett and thought herself a cut above the rest of them.

  Julia with artillery of her own by now: ‘There’s some I wouldn’t care if I never spoke to again.’

  Rebecca’s eyes like daggers. ‘And who might they be?’

  Julia smiling, so sweetly. ‘Surprised you need to ask.’

  ‘At least we’ll have our own place to ourselves again, once she’s gone.’ Danielle’s contribution.

  ‘Damn right,’ said Michael. But gave Julia the once over, all the same, eyes lingering here and there, letting her see his thoughts.

  Yes, Julia thought as she towelled herself dry. No doubt about it; loads of love and affection all round. Not that it had made any difference. Her feelings for Craig had deepened over the years. She had never looked at another man, had never had any plans to, and Craig, she had known, had felt the same. Rebecca and Danielle had been an irritant, no more.

  So she and Craig had hung on, doing all the things lovers do, planning a future so uncertain that the exercise had been pointless but doing it, all the same.

  Craig had always loved the farm but from the first they had known that he would never inherit it. His grandfather had been working it; in time, his father would do the same. Walter Warren hadn’t even been fifty; it could have been another twenty-five years before he’d pulled out and, even then, there would have been Michael. Hopeless. So Craig had washed his hands of it and moved to Adelaide, where Julia had been at medical school. He’d found a unit near the cathedral, a job in one of the radio stations. Where, it seemed, he had made a good first im
pression.

  ‘They say they may give me a slot of my own, in time.’

  Being in Adelaide together gave them more scope but, when he suggested she move in with him, Julia said no. ‘I love you,’ she said. ‘You know that. But we’ve got to sort out this family feud nonsense first, or they’ll never let us alone.’

  We’ve got to sort it out. What she meant was that he had to do it. She was an only child, whereas he was one of four, and the problems were on his side of the fence.

  ‘They seem to think I’m some kind of threat,’ Julia complained.

  ‘So you are. Grandpa’s always had a soft spot for you.’

  ‘You would never know it.’

  ‘He wouldn’t have let you come over when we were kids, if he hadn’t.’

  Which she supposed was true. ‘I don’t see why that should bother them, though.’

  ‘Because he might decide to stick you in his will.’

  She was scornful. ‘With your Dad? And four of you? Get real.’

  ‘If we were married —’

  ‘But we’re not.’ In love or not, she was quick to say it, uneasy at the prospect of locking herself into a permanent battleground.

  ‘It’s the way they think.’

  ‘Then I pity them.’

  ‘Maybe. But never turn your back.’

  ‘There are times when I wish I’d never heard the name Warren,’ Julia said. With one exception, always, although still she would let Craig go only so far.

  ‘Enough.’ Night after night it was the same. ‘Time you went home.’

  ‘You make it very hard,’ he complained.

  ‘I’m sorry.’ But was not. It was hard for her, too. Sometimes she wondered what she was playing at, or not playing at, decided it was because she had too much riding on her career. No end of students lived with each other; it seemed to make no difference to their studies, yet Julia remained afraid that in her own case it would.

  That’s the point, she thought. I would want it to make a difference. If it didn’t, I would wonder whether there were something wrong. So she stuck to what she felt was right for her. If it made Craig snakey — and it did — that was too bad. She loved him, but he was not indispensable to her. She did not want him to be; was scared of ever being so dependent on another person. But his loyalty to her, given the attitude of the others, became even more important, even fundamental to their relationship.