The Ties That Bind

by Lexi Landsman

  She glanced at her father, who now looked lost in thought. ‘Are you okay, Dad?’

  ‘Just thinking about your mother and how much I miss her.’

  Courtney spoke warmly to him. ‘Me too, Dad. She would have loved to see Matthew play.’ She knew it had been hard for her father since her mother died, and with the Alzheimer’s, she wondered if it worried him that he could lose her all over again when his memory faded.

  3

  IN WHAT felt like another lifetime, David Hamilton had been a rising soccer player. Throughout his school and university days he had played for the top teams, but a broken ankle and detached gluteal tendon in second-year university prevented him from pursuing it as a career. At the time David was crushed, but looking back he knew that he couldn’t have gone much further unless he had given up his studies in ophthalmology. In some ways, he was glad he didn’t have to make that decision or face rejection if he hadn’t been good enough. So, when David’s son was two and he rolled the ball to him, David was more than a little excited when Matthew’s first instinct was to kick it back. Sure, it didn’t go straight or more than a metre, but in that moment David had hoped his son would grow up to share his passion for the game.

  Fast-forward eight years and there was no doubt in David’s mind that not only did Matthew love soccer but he could play better than David ever had at his age. If appreciating a sport was a genetic trait, it seemed only fitting that his son had inherited it. Soccer talk was their bonding time and one of the reasons Courtney often teased them that she felt left out.

  David locked up his ophthalmology clinic for the day and got home in time to have thirty minutes of soccer practice before Matthew had to be on the field for his warm-up. They faced each other in the garden, Matthew wearing his new kit. His blue socks were pulled up to his knees, bulky from the extra-thick shin pads Courtney insisted he wear. His shorts were loose and hanging to his knees.

  ‘Let’s work on using different parts of the body to control the ball,’ David suggested. ‘I’ll play the ball to you from different speeds and heights.’

  It was his first game in the under-twelves premier division. It hadn’t taken Matthew long to work his way to the top level. Since the age of six, he had been playing for the team a year above him.

  David kicked the ball towards him and watched as his son prepared himself. He received it with his chest before playing the ball back with the inside of his foot.

  ‘How was that?’ Matthew asked, sweeping his hair back.

  ‘Brilliant, buddy.’

  Next David lobbed the ball high and Matthew returned it with a header. ‘Okay, next one. This one, control with your left foot. Receive it with the instep, then send it back with your shoelaces.’

  Like David, Matthew was right-footed, but he had far more control with his left than David ever had. Matthew received it with one touch and chipped it back. He flicked his hair again – something he did when he was nervous or concentrating hard.

  ‘What a shot!’ David said.

  ‘Am I as good as you, Dad?’

  ‘You are just like me, buddy. Show me your right calf.’ Matthew pointed his foot forward to push out his calf. David did the same. He gave his son a little tap on the leg. ‘We’ve got the strongest calf muscles in Miami, kid.’ David noticed the bloodied bandage on Matthew’s knee. ‘Hey, what happened there?’

  ‘A bike spoke flicked my leg. But I’ll be fine to play,’ Matthew quickly added.

  ‘Looks like you came off second-best. Maybe you need to give your dismantling projects a break. Your mom did quite a good job with that bandage. I should hire her as a nurse,’ he joked.

  When they arrived at the field, Matthew’s body language changed. He seemed pensive and nervous when he sized up the opposition, who were taller and more solid. Matthew was the youngest player on his team. He was short and skinny but he had good strength.

  ‘Dad,’ Matthew said in a low tone before he went over to his teammates, ‘what if I’m not good enough?’

  ‘Then we should just go home,’ David said seriously, and then laughed, squeezing his son’s shoulders. ‘Don’t be silly. You don’t get into their premier team by chance. They picked you because you’re one of the best.’

  ‘But they all look so much bigger,’ Matthew said, scanning the players on the field who were passing the ball to each other.

  ‘Size is nothing. Skill is everything. And you, my little man, are just like your father. So, go out there and show off.’

  ‘Okay, Dad,’ he said, grinning, as the coach gathered the players together.

  When the team took their positions, David watched Matthew bend his knees and hunch down as if the ball would head in his direction any second. He was scrunching his eyebrows and squinting into the sun. David felt a rush pride seeing Matthew in the same position he used to play – right midfield. Most parents could admit to being biased about their kid’s talents, and David unabashedly was, but he was sure his son had something special, that he could actually make a career as a professional sportsman if he kept improving. Even the coach had spoken to him about Matthew’s ability.

  The opposition moved forward. Matthew hesitated for a moment as the player neared him. He then ran forward and tackled him. He grabbed the ball and dribbled it in the opposite direction. As players moved in on him, he quickly passed the ball to the centre midfield and then looked up at David with a smug smile on his face.

  At half-time, Courtney and Frank made their way over to the stands. ‘Hey,’ she said, kissing David’s cheek as she sat down. ‘The traffic was awful.’ She scanned the field looking for Matthew.

  Frank gave David a strong pat on the back. ‘Have we missed anything?’

  ‘Oh, you know, the usual, Matthew’s sheer sporting brilliance just like his dad.’

  ‘Even if you do say so yourself?’ Courtney smirked back. ‘Well, there’s no denying that I have no sporting ability. So, I’ll let you claim this one. But he definitely gets his brains and good looks from me.’

  David gave her a playful sidelong glance. ‘That’s debatable.’

  Courtney twirled her fingers around her necklace – a single pearl on a leather string – when Frank suddenly seemed transfixed by it. ‘Where did you get that?’ he said, with a hint of alarm in his voice.

  Courtney was getting used to dealing with her father’s confusion and did her best to calm him down. ‘This was Mom’s, Dad,’ she said gently. ‘I found it in a jewellery box after she died.’

  ‘Where was the jewellery box?’ His tone was almost accusing.

  Courtney took the necklace off and put it in his palm, hoping it would jog his memory. ‘It was in the back of her cupboard in a shoe box. Remember?’

  He held the pearl in his hand and felt its smooth edges. ‘I gave that to your mother,’ he said, as if only just realising it.

  Courtney kept her voice soft and measured. ‘Yes, Dad, you must have. I know you miss her.’ She could see a glaze in his eyes. ‘Maybe we can look at some photos of her when I take you home.’

  He held the pearl tighter in his palm. ‘I don’t know how you found it. I thought I lost it when we left Fiji.’

  ‘Mom must have kept it, Dad.’

  ‘Yes, she must have,’ he said as if lost in thought. He handed it back to her and she placed it around her neck. ‘You look just like her,’ he said.

  Courtney stared at Frank. Had he forgotten that his daughter was adopted? ‘The way you wear it, I mean,’ he said quickly, suddenly less vague.

  She sighed, not wanting to accept that the Alzheimer’s was progressing. David took her hand silently as they turned their attention back to the field. Matthew’s teammate attempted a long pass to him on the wing but it was intercepted by an opposing player who had an open run to the goal. Matthew quickly chased him down and executed a perfectly timed sliding tackle. He then quickly re-gathered the ball and lobbed it upfield and out of danger.

  ‘Just like his dad,’ David beamed.

 
Frank could feel the imprint of the pearl in his palm long after he handed it back to his daughter. Though his memory was fading fast, the sensations it evoked made his chest tighten. They say that about memory – that even when it’s gone, the feelings it conjures stay. More and more Frank found himself caught in that displacing chasm; a sensation would catch him but he couldn’t place what it was attached to, like deja vu.

  He could still remember the very first time he had seen her. She was picking grapes from the vineyard. He caught snatches of her through the dappled light of the vines. She was beautiful, like a model straight out of a magazine. Golden rays of the late afternoon caught on her sharp cheekbones. Her mouth looked like a ripe peach, soft and pink, enticing. He had never believed in love at first sight, but as he stood there enthralled by her beauty, he felt a tug in his chest so strong that he knew that this woman would change his life.

  Frank was in his late twenties, living in Miami, when he decided to take a year off to travel after qualifying as a vet. He’d saved up enough money for a flight and a year’s stay in Australia. It was a country he’d always wanted to visit. He was a keen surfer and the coastline boasted some of the best surf spots in the world. He wanted to visit Ayers Rock, camp in the Outback and swim in the aqua waters of the Great Barrier Reef. He planned to make his way down the east coast from the northernmost tip of the Cape York Peninsula. He had a working visa, so he hoped to get as many odd jobs as he could or work in exchange for room and board. He flew into Perth and spent a week there before making his way up to Broome and getting a job as a pearl diver for a few months. It was gruelling work but he loved every second of it. While working there, he came across the most beautiful, perfectly formed pearl he had ever seen. Against his moral code, he found himself slipping it into his pocket to save as a souvenir.

  From there, he travelled through the Kimberley and was enthralled by the rugged gorges and grand waterways. He camped for three nights, eating only bush tucker, and saw his first crocodile. He backpacked all the way down the east coast and had the best surf experiences of his life. When he reached the south of the coast he went to inland Victoria. He wanted to experience some of the wine region, so he got a job as a grape-picker at a winery.

  It was there he had first seen her, framed between the rows of bright green vines, and he had been taken aback by her beauty – her sparkling eyes, her glowing skin, her long hair falling down her back. He walked along in the row parallel until he found the courage to introduce himself. ‘Hi,’ he said, cutting through to her row, his fingers stained red from the grapes. ‘I’m Frank, I just started work here this week.’

  She smiled at him and continued to pick.

  ‘What did the grape say when he got stepped on?’ he ventured.

  She looked up at him, confused. ‘Sorry, were you talking to me?’

  ‘What did the grape say when he got stepped on?’ Frank repeated.

  She stopped picking and put her lug down. ‘What?’

  ‘He let out a little whine.’

  She grinned, and Frank was relieved. If she hadn’t, it would have gone down as one of the world’s worst pick-up lines. ‘Why aren’t grapes ever lonely?’

  ‘I have no idea,’ she said, a smile lighting up her whole face.

  ‘Because they come in bunches.’

  He took her laughter as an invitation to walk alongside her, picking from the vines opposite her. ‘So, have you been working here for a while?’

  ‘About three months,’ she said as she ran her fingers delicately over the vines. ‘I live nearby. I love it here. It’s so peaceful out in the vineyards.’

  ‘Do you plan to stay here long?’

  ‘I don’t like to make too many plans,’ she said, smiling. ‘I try to live in the moment.’ She wore a straw hat that shielded her face from the sun. She took her curved harvest knife and cut down a luscious cluster of ripe grapes and placed it delicately into her lug.

  Frank was about to cut a triangle of grapes when she gripped his shoulder, stopping him. ‘They’re not ripe yet. You see,’ she said, picking a single grape from the vine. She took her knife and delicately cut it down the middle to reveal green seeds. ‘The seeds go from green to brown as it matures. This will be ready soon but it’s not there yet.’ She handed him half the grape and she took the other. ‘Try it, you’ll see.’

  He did and winced as the sharp, acidic taste caught in his throat. They had looked perfectly ripe to him. ‘How did you know?’

  ‘You get a feel for it. You’ll learn.’ She smiled and continued to walk, swiftly assessing the clusters and cutting down the ones she deemed ripe for harvest.

  Frank had been travelling for close to nine months and this was the first girl he had come across who made his heart feel like one of the vines was growing around his chest. ‘Will you go to dinner with me?’ he asked impulsively.

  She turned and he saw her cheeks flush. ‘I can’t,’ she said quickly.

  ‘What did one grape say to another?’

  She couldn’t keep herself from grinning. ‘What?’

  ‘You’ve got appeal in bunches.’

  She threw a grape at him. ‘Fine,’ she said, smiling. ‘Only if you promise never to tell me another bad grape joke again.’

  Frank found himself smiling as if the moment were yesterday. Once you had loved, really loved, that burning around the edges of your heart was always there. A hollow expanse of space that reminded you that it had once been full. Frank still found himself yearning for her. The way her gaze made him feel invincible, like the world was theirs and they could run away with it. He still remembered the way her skin felt against his, the way her hair smelled like summer and lemongrass. He could still recall how she held the pearl in her hand when he gave it to her. Other things, though, were slipping into that blurred crevice the doctors called Alzheimer’s. Frank thought of his disease like a pit of dead memories piled on top of each other, unrecognisable and irretrievable.

  How much he longed to hold his memory’s hand, feel its clear and sharp edges, to have tangible proof that he had been a man who loved and was loved in return. Instead, he was simply a shadow of his younger self – an ageing man whose life was nothing more than a fading recollection.

  4

  AFTER her father and grandmother left the house, Jade didn’t waste any time. She put on her protective clothing, knowing that radiant heat was the biggest killer of people and animals in a fire. She wet the pasture behind the house and hoped that the power didn’t go out. She took out the firefighting pump, checked that its petrol tank was full and had the hose ready. She put wet towels around the doors and ripped down any curtains she could pull with ease. Through the window, she saw the trees on her neighbour’s property catch alight. She could see Chris desperately trying to round up his cattle.

  Without thinking, Jade ran to the machinery shed and felt a bolt of heat like air from an oven slap against her skin. She jumped onto the tractor equipped with the water unit and sped towards the fence line that separated their properties.

  ‘Chris!’ she yelled over the wind, which roared like thunder. ‘Let me help you.’

  Her neighbour kept his eyes fixed on the cattle, sweat drenching his long-sleeve shirt and protective fire hood. ‘I’m trying to get them to my dam but they’re skittish.’

  He opened the gate for her and Jade rode through. Cows were intelligent animals and she was sure they knew what was coming. ‘Let’s close the gates and try to force them down,’ Jade suggested.

  She suddenly thought about her alpacas and shuddered, but there was no time to let fear take hold. As soon as she finished helping her neighbour, she would try to find them and get them to safety.

  They shut the gates, but the cattle moved around frantically, ignoring their attempts as more trees around the property started to catch alight. Jade and Chris looked at each other in horror. ‘I think we should just open all the gates to the dam. They’re smart, Chris. They’ll find their way there. Let’s try to get thes
e fires out so it doesn’t spread.’

  They opened the gates and then rode towards the burning trees. Chris had an 800-litre firefighting tank mounted on his trailer with a pump and hoses attached. He began to douse the flames while Jade used the hose reel attached to her spraying unit to work on the small spot fires that were flaring up from the embers.

  While they were working on stemming the fire, Jade heard an explosion. Suddenly it felt like she was in the middle of an artillery battle. She could feel her heart thumping against her chest. She looked down the valley and realised it was a gas cylinder exploding on her northern neighbour’s property.

  ‘Shit, Chris, the Millers’ house,’ she said, pointing to the distance.

  Mr and Mrs Miller were friends of her grandmother’s and were in their seventies. They were frail and often had their grandchildren in their care. ‘Let’s go see if they’re okay,’ Chris said.

  They left on their tractors and made their way down the valley at speed. By now embers were raining from the sky in terrifying hot bursts. When they got to the house, they could hear screams from inside. Chris worked on the fire that had taken hold of their hay shed while Jade ran inside. She found the Millers huddling in the bathroom with their two grandchildren, who were three and eight, and their pet dog. The children were screaming and the Millers looked terrified.

  ‘Where’s Jim?’ Jade asked after their son.

  Mr Miller was struggling for breath. ‘He took the horses on the float, and Cathy’s working at the hospital. So they left us to look after the children. We don’t know what to do, Jade.’

  The girl was holding her little brother close as tears streamed down his face.

  ‘Barbara,’ Jade said, ‘I need you to call for help.’

  ‘I tried,’ she said, her eyes glassy with blind terror. ‘There’s no one to send. All the local units are deployed. They told us to take shelter in the house. We’re on our own.’

  At that the girl started to cry loudly. Jade took her hand and knelt beside her. ‘Listen, Sarah, I need you to try really hard to be brave. You’re doing such a good job looking after your little brother. You’re going to be fine, I promise. Your granny and grandpa would never let anything happen to you or your brother.’