Return to Stringybark Creek

by Karly Lane

  ‘Hads, don’t worry about it,’ Ollie said, taking her hands to make her look up at him. ‘The day was a huge success. We raised heaps. Thank you.’

  Maybe Ollie was right, maybe she needed to stop focusing on the one thing that went wrong and remember that a whole lot had actually gone right. They’d raised a lot of money today, and it was all going to the Royal Flying Doctors mental health unit, whose teams of clinicians offered twenty-four-hour tele-health services, as well as visits from mental health professionals to remote towns and properties. Those were the kinds of services that rural towns like theirs needed.

  She and Ollie had spent a lot of time researching which charity would be the best fit for the money raised in Luke’s honour. The information they’d uncovered had been startling. On average, people in rural and remote Australia died from suicide at twice the rate of those in the city yet were only able to access mental health services at a fifth of the rate of their city counterparts. Farmers, young men and Aboriginal people were among the most at risk of suicide, partly because of the lack of access to services and early intervention. It seemed a no-brainer that this was the charity they needed to help promote.

  The coffee cup debacle was unfortunate but, Ollie was right, overall the day had been a huge success and she was very glad that it was over. She didn’t know how her mother managed to make these fundraising events look so simple—they were exhausting.

  Hadley made her way out of the bedroom to the kitchen, rubbing her eyes. The phone had woken her earlier, and as she reached the kitchen it was ringing again. Her mother answered. She glanced at her watch. It was an early start for whatever crisis the community hotline was sharing this morning.

  Her father walked into the kitchen as she was reaching for the coffee, but she paused mid yawn when she saw his face.

  ‘I have to go. Yes, he’s just got back from town now. I’ll call you later,’ her mother was saying as she hung up.

  ‘What’s going on?’ Hadley asked as her mum crossed the room, foregoing the usual morning greeting and grabbing the local paper from the bench.

  ‘Oh, dear God,’ her mother breathed, covering her mouth with one hand.

  ‘What?’ Hadley repeated, but suddenly she had a terrible feeling. She went across to stand beside her mother and saw the front-page story about the high tea. NAUGHTY HAUGHTY HIGH TEA was written above the photo of the three elderly, well-respected members of the community smiling happily at the camera. They were holding up teacups with words no respectable little old lady would ever be caught saying in public.

  ‘The phone’s been ringing all morning. Everyone’s demanding to know what’s going on,’ Lavinia said. ‘Hadley, do you know anything about this?’

  She wasn’t in the photo; she and Liv had been cropped out of it. Clearly a photo of three old ladies proudly holding up cups with profanities scrawled across them was what Debbie had wanted. The conniving witch.

  Profani-tea anyone? the article began. We are not amused! Local reporter, Debbie Winfellow, investigates the seedy underbelly of the high tea revolution.

  ‘Investigates, my arse,’ Hadley muttered.

  One would have to ask what kind of event would promote the use of foul language at a function attended by the Riverina elite. Where’s the digni-tea in that?

  Hadley rolled her eyes.

  Could this augur the fall of the High Tea?

  Hadley was furious. The article wasn’t even about the fundraiser. It didn’t mention how much money they had raised or why they were raising it. The whole point of the high tea had been to increase community awareness of mental health struggles. But, no, Debbie had decided she wanted to make fun of three old darlings who weren’t even aware of what the stupid cups even said. Instead of talking about what a success the day had been, she’d written a scathing report of how a room full of women had spent the afternoon gossiping while gorging themselves on pastries, cake and profanity.

  ‘Hadley!’ her mother snapped.

  ‘No, I didn’t have anything to do with it … not intentionally,’ she amended, and flinched when her mother narrowed her gaze. ‘Somehow my Christmas gift cups got mixed up with the ones in the box from the house. I had no idea they were in there, and Griff swears it wasn’t a practical joke. I don’t know how it happened.’

  ‘That’s what was written on your cups?’ her mother asked incredulously.

  ‘Linc thought they’d be funny.’

  ‘Oh, no,’ Lavinia rubbed her temple with her fingertips then sighed. ‘It’s my fault. I was worried we didn’t have enough cups, and I remembered your lovely ones from Christmas, so I put them in as extras in case we needed them. I forgot all about telling you once I got to the hall.’

  ‘It wasn’t your fault,’ Hadley said, putting an arm around her mother’s shoulders. ‘You didn’t know what was on them.’

  ‘What was Linc thinking?’ she demanded.

  ‘It was just a joke. I’m sure Linc would be devastated if he knew something like this had happened. Look,’ Hadley said, deciding to take charge of the situation, ‘the only person to blame here is Debbie. I specifically told her not to run that photo. I explained what had happened, and she lied to me. She said she’d delete it and instead she ran a piece on it. She already had her nose out of joint because I refused to give her an exclusive interview before the wedding. I should have realised I couldn’t trust her.’

  ‘You let me deal with Debbie. Her editor is the husband of the vice president of the View Club. She’s soon going to realise she’s bitten off more than she can chew,’ her mother vowed, stalking from the room.

  Hadley was glad she wasn’t the one on the end of that hardened glare.

  Hadley fumed as she waited on hold a few minutes later. Who the hell did this Debbie woman think she was? There was no talking her mother out of dealing with the situation in her own way, but Hadley intended to confront this head on.

  ‘Hello, Debbie Winfellow speaking.’

  ‘Debbie. Hadley Callahan.’

  ‘Hadley, good morning,’ Debbie answered, sounding remarkably calm.

  ‘Is it, Debbie? Because my morning hasn’t started out all that great.’

  ‘Oh?’

  ‘Why on earth would you publish that photo after I specifically asked you to delete it? Not to mention making a mockery of our fundraising efforts.’

  ‘What can I say? It made a great story.’

  ‘You’ve humiliated those women and have done who knows how much damage to the cause we’re trying to promote.’

  ‘Oh, come on, it was funny.’

  ‘I’m not seeing it.’

  ‘Admit it, this will get more people talking about your high tea than some run-of-the-mill recap. So, you’re welcome,’ she said smugly. ‘I’m sorry, but I’m late for an appointment. Lovely chatting, talk soon.’ And she hung up, leaving Hadley speechless on the other end.

  She put the phone down and braced her hands on the kitchen bench. It frustrated her to admit, but maybe, just maybe, Debbie had a point. Hadley eyed the phone thoughtfully. They needed to turn this negative into a positive, but they had to act quickly.

  She grabbed her phone and called Ollie.

  ‘Hey, it’s me. Can you come over later? I need to show you something.’

  Ollie had plenty of work to do, but he’d detected the strain in Hadley’s voice and knew he wouldn’t be able to wait until he’d finished work before he went over to make sure she was okay.

  He had a bit of an idea what it was about—he’d already heard from his mother that the shit had well and truly hit the proverbial fan over the teacup scandal.

  He climbed the steps of the Callahan house and found Hadley sitting at her computer on the verandah.

  ‘Hey,’ he said, loving the way the morning sun caught the tips of her hair.

  ‘Hey. I didn’t mean you had to drop everything and come over now. I hope you weren’t doing anything important.’

  ‘Nothing that won’t keep. What’s up?’

/>   ‘I take it you’ve heard about the newspaper?’

  ‘Yeah. Listen, Hads, it’s going to be okay.’

  ‘Oh, yeah, no … I know. That’s not why I asked you to come over,’ she said, waving a hand dismissively.

  ‘Okay,’ he said slowly, eyeing the way she was cracking her fingers nervously.

  ‘So, I was thinking we need to turn this newspaper disaster around to work for us. We need to pounce on the publicity and use it to our advantage.’

  ‘And how are we going to do that?’

  ‘By taking this thing in a different direction.’ He watched her get up and begin pacing. ‘It’s like you said earlier, having the community support things like the high tea is fine—it’s better than fine, it’s really awesome—but we need to think bigger than this. I think we need to aim this at a younger audience.’

  ‘Any ideas on how we’re going to do that?’ he asked. He saw her nervousness fade and excitement replace it.

  ‘I’m glad you asked,’ she said, sending him a tentative smile. ‘I think you need to be the face of the campaign.’

  ‘Me?’ he laughed, waiting for her to tell him she was kidding. When she didn’t, his amusement turned to wariness.

  ‘Okay, so you remember the photos I took a couple weeks ago? In the chaser bin.’

  ‘Yeah.’ His unease was growing by the minute. ‘Hadley. What did you do?’ Warning lights began flashing as she gave a small wince and turned her computer around to face him. He looked down at the screen and saw a Facebook page … along with a photo of himself reclining back in a bin full of lentils.

  ‘You put it up on Facebook?’ he yelped.

  ‘I asked you about using it yesterday,’ she said defensively, holding his alarmed stare. ‘Before we hung up,’ she added, as though to prompt his memory.

  ‘You asked if you could put a photo of me on Facebook,’ he agreed, ‘but I didn’t know you were talking about that photo.’ She’d been taking photos the whole time she’d been home; he figured she was posting a photo of them together.

  ‘You’ve got a hat covering your face, and I haven’t used your name anywhere,’ she reasoned. ‘But before you freak out too much, look at this,’ she said, coming out of her chair to stand beside him and point to the screen.

  He followed her finger to a number at the bottom of the post. Two hundred shares and five thousand likes.

  ‘I only posted this a little over five hours ago.’

  ‘That’s how many people have seen me naked?’

  ‘That’s how many people have interacted with this photo on social media. That’s how many people have clicked on that photo. If we tie in this photo, more of these photos, with a message, with some kind of way to get people to talk about rural suicide … can you imagine the reach we’d have?’

  ‘You want to use porn to get attention?’

  ‘It’s not porn,’ she said rolling her eyes. ‘You’re strategically covered. But let’s face it, a calendar of naked … well, anything really, will always sell more copies than photos of landscapes. Naked farmers? Rural suicide awareness?’ She held up her hands, weighing the words. ‘They go together. It’s marketing genius. We need to cause controversy in order to get people to notice us. Once we have their attention, we can start the conversation. You wanted to do something positive, Ollie … well, this is your chance. You need to be the face of this campaign. You need to drive this.’

  ‘I don’t know anything about marketing and campaigns.’

  ‘You don’t have to. I can do that part, but you have the passion and the drive. You’re the soul of this whole thing and people will relate to you.’

  He shook his head; this was crazy. She’d posted the damn photo on the internet! But part of him was kinda chuffed that he seemed to be getting a lot of likes. He reached out and scrolled through the comments and gave an embarrassed grunt as he read through them. Then he looked at the page itself. ‘You made a page for it?’

  Dare to Bare was written in big letters across the banner.

  ‘We can change it to whatever you like. I was just experimenting with this to see what would happen. This is your baby, Ollie.’

  ‘So we just post a heap of semi-naked photos?’

  ‘At first maybe, but I was thinking we could get everyone we know to do similar photos, get a whole bunch and make a calendar to sell. All that research you were doing, all those places you found online to get help, we could list them in the calendar, and put a whole heap of other useful info in there. The photos are a bit of fun; they’re a way to get people to have a bit of a laugh, then we can open up conversation about rural suicide.’

  ‘I don’t know about the photo thing, Hads. I mean, that was just muckin’ around. I don’t know if I wanna put myself out there like that.’

  ‘We could open it up online, get other rural communities involved. Come on, you know what it’s like out here, if one bloke does it, everyone else will want to do one even better. It’d be huge.’

  Ollie considered her words silently for a few moments. ‘It would be kinda cool, I guess.’

  He smiled as she clapped her hands excitedly and beamed up at him. ‘This is so exciting, so first we need to …’

  He lost track of what she was saying. He’d just agreed to be the face—or rather, bare arse—of a campaign to bring awareness to rural suicide. All she’d had to do was turn those big blue eyes on him and he’d caved. Hell, who was he kidding? He’d run buck naked down the main street if she asked him to. There was very little Hadley Callahan could ask of him that he’d refuse. He was putty in her hands. Suddenly the thought of being in her hands began setting off a whole other train of thought and he had to pull on the brakes in order to listen to what she was saying. It was not an easy ask.

  Twenty-one

  ‘You’re doing what?’ Olivia asked, staring at him open-mouthed. She glanced at the Facebook page with her almost naked brother lying in a truck of lentils.

  ‘Making a calendar.’

  ‘I’m in,’ Griff said immediately.

  ‘What?’ Olivia asked, almost giving herself whiplash as she turned to look at her fiancé.

  ‘I’ll do it. Come on, Liv, it’s funny as hell. Naked farmers? Jeez, we used to do this stuff on a weekend just for entertainment.’

  ‘As kids. Not as grown men,’ she reminded him dryly.

  ‘It’s for a good cause,’ Ollie told his sister.

  ‘Yeah, I suppose it is,’ she admitted grudgingly.

  ‘Who else is in?’ Griff asked.

  ‘You’re the first person I’ve told about it. I thought we could split up a list of names and call a few of the local lads. Hadley’s doin’ up an online request, so I reckon we should get at least the dozen we need for the calendar.’

  ‘You know, I reckon Luke would have been the first one to put up his hand for something like this,’ Griff said.

  ‘I wish we’d decided to do this earlier. Maybe it’d have made a difference,’ Ollie muttered.

  ‘You think so?’ Griff asked quietly.

  ‘I have to believe it. Otherwise what’s the point?’ The three of them sat quietly for a few moments. ‘Until Hadley brought all this up, I’d been feeling useless. You know?’ He glanced up briefly then looked away. ‘He was our mate. I thought we were always there for each other. I mean, we are always there for each other—look at how everyone pulled together when Dad had his accident. Blokes came from everywhere to lend a hand … we all do it, we help each other out. But when it comes to stuff like this, you know, emotional shit, it’s like no one thinks anyone wants to hear about it. I keep thinkin’ how desperate he must have been at the end. And how we could have stopped it … maybe … if he’d said something to someone. It’s gotta change,’ Ollie said and he hated how his voice shook a little, but that, too, was part of the problem. Being afraid what people might think if you showed any kind of emotion other than sarcasm or humour. Hell, even anger and swearing were acceptable in men, but other emotions, like sadness and fear,
they were for women.

  ‘I was thinking only last night,’ Ollie continued, ‘that we’ve made an art form out of insulting each other. Look how we always greet someone when we see them: “Hey, dickhead. Jeez, ya packin’ on the weight”.’ Ollie gave a self-deprecating grunt. ‘No wonder these backpackers look at us weird when they first come here. Who speaks to their mates like that?’

  ‘Yeah, but come on, Ollie, that’s the whole point. They’re your mates. The meaner the insult, the more you like ’em.’ ‘That’s what I mean. It’s become a culture of putting each other down. You’re supposed to be tough enough—thick-skinned enough—to take the worst insult anyone can throw at ya. Only what about when you’re feeling really crappy? That night I saw Luke at the pub, the last time I saw him, I could tell he wasn’t himself. But he couldn’t have sat down and brought up whatever was goin’ on with a tableful of blokes who would have called him a pussy and handed him another beer till he got over his mood. It’s not good enough.’

  A thoughtful silence followed and Ollie realised it felt good to get that out in the open.

  ‘Maybe you’ve got a point,’ Griffin said slowly. ‘I’ve been guilty in the past of brushin’ off someone who’s down in the mouth as feelin’ sorry for themselves.’ He shrugged. ‘I suppose we could take it a bit easier on the ribbin’.’

  ‘Like you said, it’s how it’s always been. It’s going to take time to change the way we do things.’

  ‘Well, I’m proud of both my boys,’ Olivia said, leaning over to kiss her fiancé, before smiling at Ollie. ‘If anyone can make a difference it’s you two.’

  Ollie sat back, later that night, stretching his hands over his head. It’d been a long day, but he’d managed to achieve a lot. Hadley had released a few more of the photos she’d taken and interest in the Facebook page was growing at an alarming rate. For the first time since he’d heard about Luke’s death, he felt the helplessness that had been twisting around inside his gut begin to loosen. If they could change the world for just one person, if they could get one person to ask for help, then it’d make all this worthwhile. He had to believe it would.