Safe Harbour

by Helene Young

  She would still be working crazy hours to survive in the cut-throat restaurant scene in Sydney and beholden to Dylan. More importantly, she might never have known her mother was so sick. Beverley Fletcher was the queen of understatement, so Darcy was shocked and terrified in equal measure when Rosie had mentioned Beverley was so sick. She cringed when she remembered the morning she’d stormed back to her mother’s house.

  ‘Mum?’ The front door swung closed with a thump as Darcy shoved the key back in her pocket.

  ‘Darcy? You’re back early?’ Her mother appeared from the kitchen, an apron around her waist, her long hair tied up in a loose ponytail. Her eyes were red-rimmed, her cheeks hollow. It was clear she’d been crying and now blindingly obvious to Darcy that she’d mistaken her mother’s illness for excessive dieting.

  ‘Oh, Mum, why didn’t you tell me?’ All she could do was hold out her arms. Her usually aloof mother had folded against her, sobbing. Darcy felt the frailty in her bones, the knobs on her spine like marbles under her fingers.

  Eventually Beverley pulled away, waving her hands in front of her face.

  ‘It’s fine. I’m sure I’m just being silly. It will be all right.’

  ‘Can we start at the beginning?’ Darcy asked, putting an arm around Beverley’s shoulder and walking them towards the kitchen where she propped her mother on one of the high stools. ‘Please? Rosie told me you’ve been to see a specialist in Sydney, that’s it’s women’s business. What’s wrong?’

  Beverley pressed her lips together and frowned. Finally she spoke. ‘It’s ovarian cancer, but . . .’ she took a deep breath. ‘But I’ve had it before.’

  ‘Before?’ Darcy was stunned.

  ‘Before you were born. They removed one of my ovaries. I wasn’t sure I’d ever have a child, not after everything . . .’

  ‘Everything?’ Darcy asked more gently this time. Why had she never heard any of this before?

  ‘I had a string of miscarriages.’ Beverley looked at her daughter. ‘I lost a little boy, close to full term. He was perfect, stillborn.’ Her chin lifted as she swallowed, valiantly controlling her tears.

  ‘Oh, Mum. I’m so sorry.’ Darcy could only reach out and squeeze her mother’s trembling hands. ‘Why didn’t you tell me? I always wondered why I was an only child.’

  ‘You don’t talk about those things, Darcy. ’

  In a moment of clarity, Darcy heard echoes of Stirling deriding weakness of any kind. ‘So, the cancer?’

  ‘They found a cyst on my right ovary. I was young and otherwise healthy so they simply removed it. It was cancerous, but the treatment was relatively short. We were still in Brisbane then and your father was playing football, teaching. They thought they’d got it all. Then I fell pregnant with you. It seemed like it was all behind me. I guess . . .’ Her face crumpled, but she fought back her tears and waved Darcy away as she continued.

  ‘This time they want to do a complete hysterectomy, maybe a short course of chemo. Kill it once and for all.’

  ‘You should have told me.’

  ‘There’s nothing anyone can do, Darcy. It’s my problem. I have to beat it myself.’

  Darcy forced herself to ignore the hurt she felt at her mother’s rejection. It wasn’t about her. ‘This is your life, Mum, but this is something we can fight together. It’s not one of Stirling’s football sessions,’ she said, managing half a smile.

  Beverley shot a sharp look at her. ‘I know that.’

  ‘So let’s do this together. I was planning on coming home anyway in the next couple of months.’ A day ago it couldn’t have been further from her mind, but now? Now she had no choice and she saw the relief in Beverley’s eyes before her mother dissolved into tears again. It was a rare sight.

  So at thirty-two Darcy turned her back on the lure of a cele­brity career and embarked on a seachange. She was quick to squash any niggles of resentment. Her mother’s hysterectomy had been a success and the chemotherapy treatment had been mercifully short. Beverley got stronger every day, her hair growing back and her energy returning. The future no doubt held more challenges, but during those dark hours, when Beverley could barely lift her hand let alone walk, mother and daughter had forged a friendship, a love so different to everything that had gone before.

  Darcy dragged her thoughts back to the present and checked her mobile phone. One message from Noah. He knew she was an early riser. His voice usually brightened her day, but his message this morning made her frown.

  ‘Hey, Darcy. Hope you shape up okay today. Your man’s regained consciousness and apart from lungs full of water and a depressed fracture on his temple, he’s in surprisingly good physical form. Only snag is his memory’s shot. He has no idea who he is. Nothing: no name, no history. The doctors aren’t too worried yet, but he’ll have to stay in for a couple of days. He’s pretty shaken up by the whole thing. I’ll keep you posted.’

  No memory. Darcy shuddered. How disorienting would that be? She shoved her feet into a pair of old training shoes. They hadn’t seen any running action for twelve months or more. Both dogs came when she whistled, Gypsy raring to go, Major more resigned than enthusiastic.

  She closed the front door, and then checked the sky. Last night’s storm had disappeared, leaving behind low scuddy cloud that would burn off as the sun rose. The wooden gate, set into the waist high stone wall, squeaked as she opened it. Rose bushes struggled under the length of their summer limbs. The agapanthus collapsed onto the edging in untidy piles of yellowing leaves, their lilies long gone. Darcy tried to ignore their neglected state, knowing she needed a weekend to prune and clip as winter approached. The herb garden by the back door was the only section she’d had time to clear and replant. Having poured all her energy into turning the old whaling station into Whale Song she’d had no time to restore the cottage and its surrounds to the former lush glory Ruby Fenwick had maintained for the eighty-odd years she’d lived there. Maybe next year.

  Gypsy bounded ahead. The street was quiet as she wandered up the incline. Ruby’s house was the last in the line on the no-through road. It nestled into a stand of gnarly old Banksias that leant to the northwest courtesy of the prevailing breeze. They were the type of tree forever connected in Darcy’s head with May Gibb’s Snugglepot and Cuddlepie and the Banksia men. Their black cones always raised the tiniest frisson of irrational alarm on a dark night.

  A small creek ran quite close to the back of the property so the native grasses were lush and thick. Roos appeared at dusk, their ears tuned for any sounds from Gypsy or Major, their inquisitive noses twitching. Darcy was also pretty sure the rustlings at night in the back paddock were a couple of echidnas and a bandicoot or two. They were the nighttime noises she’d missed in the city, which told of a subterr­anean community completely removed from the mayhem of humans.

  On one side of Fenwick Road were the four houses, Darcy’s included. Across the worn strip of bitumen a defunct dairy farm was now used for agisting horses. The fences were electrified and Gypsy stayed well clear, but it didn’t stop her sniffing the air like the working dog she was born to be. Watching Gypsy took Darcy back to her childhood when she ran wild on the Moretons’ farm with Grace and Noah. She could still remember the summer she learnt how to do a piercing whistle, fingers stuffed into her mouth. Old Bluey, the farm’s resident top dog at the time, took all that whistling to heart and the milking herd found themselves rounded up and shepherded to the dairy at midday, three hours earlier than usual. In typical Moreton style, Noah’s dad, Brett, had laughed until tears ran down his weathered cheeks. No doubt the milk yield was lower that week, but he had only seen the funny side of it.

  The Moretons’ ramshackle farmhouse was a refuge from the order and regimentation of Darcy’s pristine family home filled with showcased rugby league memorabilia. Maybe that’s why she’d chosen to buy a rundown old cottage full of memories over something on one of the growing housing estates in the surrounding districts. Her mother had spent a large chunk of her divorc
e settlement on a bungalow at Agnes Water, twenty minutes down the road from Banksia Cove. It was a new beginning for Beverley. Fourteen years later it was still sterile, a house not a home as far as Darcy was concerned, despite the clusters of family photos which had pride of place on the bookshelves.

  Half an hour later she walked back up her front path, her mobile phone ringing inside the house. She got to it just in time.

  ‘Hey, Darce, how are you doing?’ Noah’s voice sent a tremor of awareness through her.

  ‘I feel like I’ve gone ten rounds in a kickboxing class and I’m wheezing a little, but on balance I’d rather that than losing my memory. How’re you doing?’

  ‘The night ended up being a horror – another crash out on the highway. At least this time no one died, two in Bundy Base and one medevaced to the Royal Brisbane. I’ve had about three hours’ sleep.’

  ‘Damn. Rough night.’

  ‘Yeah, well, goes with the territory. I’ll swing by the Base to see the two of them – I can also check in on your yachtsman.’

  ‘You said he’s got amnesia?’

  ‘The doctor had a longwinded name for it, but it’s the sort caused by head trauma.’

  ‘Any word on the origin of the boat that might help identify him?’

  ‘No, nothing yet. It’s seven-thirty in the morning.’ He sounded tetchy. ‘Some of the guys have sobered up enough to man Sea Witch and are out patrolling for debris. AMSA doesn’t have any more information other than what they know from the EPIRB. They’re sending those details through this morning. Hopefully we’ll have a name for the poor bloke.’

  ‘And hopefully we won’t find that there was anyone else onboard.’

  ‘Yeah, let’s hope not. You going to see Dr Liz?’

  ‘Little early but yes, I’ll go and see her once the surgery opens. Just to be sure.’

  ‘Right, good. I’d better keep moving. Catch you round.’

  It was nice that he checked in on her. She felt a stab of guilt. She would have known about Beverley’s illness a whole lot sooner if she’d been more diligent about keeping in touch with her mother. Not that she’d done a better job with her father, who lived in Sydney with his new wife and their toddler. Darcy knew she should be more charitable, but a man marrying someone only a few years older than his elder daughter smacked of midlife crisis. And to find himself a father again at this late age? Maybe he’d learnt something from his first efforts at parenting. Darcy hoped so for little Amelia’s sake.

  With a bowl of cereal in her hands she walked onto her back verandah and surveyed her property. You could easily play cricket down the length of the yard and not be six and out over the chain wire fence. She smiled as she chewed her muesli remembering how Noah had said something similar when he’d driven her around for a look at the property. She had glanced at him and said, ‘You might be planning on a big family, but I can’t see me rustling up the required number of players for that.’ At the time he’d been going out with someone from Bundaberg. Jane, maybe? She was a lovely girl, but on the couple of occasions they’d met, Darcy found herself glazing over at the endless talk of weddings and babies, which seemed premature for a new relationship. Darcy wasn’t altogether surprised that by the time she finally moved back to Banksia Cove, Noah and Jane had gone their separate ways. Jane was now engaged to a tomato farmer, according to Noah.

  Selfishly Darcy didn’t mind his single status. It meant she had a best mate to hang out with again. She dreaded the day he found ‘the one’.

  She placed her empty bowl on the small table and walked down the couple of stairs. The basil and parsley were lush and green. The coriander, as usual, looked too weary to stand up. Sage, rosemary and thyme nestled close to each other and the lavender bush ran wild at the back. She dug her fingers into the soil, revelling in the soft silk of it on her fingers. Her tomato plants had pretty much run their course. She should be thinking of winter: silverbeet, rhubarb and beetroot. Maybe this morning she could swing by the nursery at Agnes Water on her way to check on her mother.

  She sighed. Last night had brought so much angst crashing back down. There were too many similarities to that storm which sixteen years ago had tipped her world on its head. Major pressed close to her, rubbing against her knee. He knew her moods so well.

  She straightened up and walked inside to check her emails. Two from girlfriends in Sydney with news that made her smile. She’d been surprised at how easy it had been to make friends in Sydney as an apprentice chef. Many of those early friendships were still a major part of her life. The internet and Facebook kept them connected in a way her grandmother’s generation couldn’t have imagined. Even Rosie had a Facebook account, although she claimed it was so she could keep an eye on her numerous offspring. Despite her stubby fingers, she could tap out a text faster than Darcy and carry on a conversation at the same time.

  Darcy surveyed the clothes in her wardrobe. A visit to her mother meant something other than her usual long shorts and a T-shirt. She didn’t need another lecture about her appearance as soon as she walked through the front door. She chose a short-sleeved dress that skimmed her body enough to show her figure without revealing too much, the soft brown fabric patterned in swirls of ochre and orange. She slid a pair of ballet flats on her feet, tousled her hair, then applied the lightest of touches of makeup. With her mobile phone and iPad in her leather handbag she headed for her ute.

  Fish R Biting opened at eleven for lunch and closed around nine when trade died down, six days a week. Monday, her day off, was still two days away, but she was used to hard work; getting ahead in the Sydney scene had desensitised her to long hours.

  Whale Song had become a labour of love, unlike Duo, which had already been fitted out when she took over the lease. She remembered vividly standing in the largest of the old whaling station storage sheds that overlooked the water with a friend from school who was now a local architect. Her heart had been racing at the scale of what she was proposing. If she took this step, then she was staying in Banksia Cove long term, not just until her mother was well again. That was a big commitment from a woman who’d fled the Cove all those years ago with so much anger in her teenage heart.

  ‘Great bones,’ the architect had said. For an instant Darcy wondered what he was talking about, but he’d waved his hands towards the exposed beams in the soaring roof and the mezzanine floor. ‘We can do good things with this. Got plans for the rest of the site?’

  She’d shaken her head, knowing she didn’t have the resources for anything more than a restaurant to start with.

  ‘Might want to hunt down some of the old-timers and see if they’re interested in setting up tours of the site, maybe even the Cove. And whale watching tours are all the rage in Hervey Bay. The whales still come through here,’ he’d said, nodding to the seaway. Darcy knew that. They were the reason she was standing here. Without them, without the magical afternoons spent here with Rosie, she wouldn’t be the woman she was today. Without Rosie’s unstinting love she wouldn’t know about compassion or loyalty or courage. She wouldn’t know that it was possible to give without expecting anything in return. And without Rosie and her germ of an idea, this whole crazy project would never have got off the ground.

  The storage shed gleamed with its new lighting. The polished-cement floor threw up soft reflections of the honey tones in the timber tables. From the mezzanine floor the cove was now visible through new windows set high into the peak of the roof. Wrought iron chairs, with stylised whale fluke backs and wooden seats, hinted at the original purpose of the building. The main room flowed out through wide bi-fold doors to the flensing deck, with its new cover of glowing timber. Terracotta pots were waiting for their plants. Market umbrellas were stacked to one side for sunny days.

  It would be beautiful, airy and light, welcoming and inviting. Darcy just hoped enough people would make the trip out to Banksia Cove and then continue on over the river to dine at Whale Song.

  There were still a couple of hours to go
before she needed to open the chip shop’s cheerful yellow door with its opaque glass. Enough time to check on Beverley, swing by the nursery, get changed and still make it to work on time. One of the joys of a rural town like the Cove was that you could drive from one side to the other in less than fifteen minutes.

  The skies were brightening, the cloud starting to break as she turned into her mother’s street. Every second house seemed to have a holiday rental sign out the front. Every other yard had a boat of some description hiding under a tarp or taking up the carport. The dedicated fisherman also had crab pots and nets drying in stacks. Those houses tended to be older, built when Agnes Water was still a sleepy backwater and the housing estate was struggling to sell. Houses like her mother’s, with its gleaming white walls and Colorbond roof, filled the block, barely leaving space for the stunted natives that had been tortured into a hedge. When she was younger Darcy had always wondered why, after Stirling headed south for his brilliant career, Beverley hadn’t moved back to Brisbane and settled in leafy Ascot where she’d grown up.

  Sitting on the swing under the mango tree in her grandparents’ lush Brisbane backyard was one of Darcy’s strongest childhood memories. Nana, in her floral aprons, smelt of vanilla and cinnamon. The marble kitchen bench was always buried under cooling racks and cake tins. The bristles on Poppy’s chin were scratchy because Sundays were for relaxing, and shaving didn’t come into it.

  She loved curling up in the acre-wide bed, tracing the patterns on the hand sewn broderie anglaise pillowslips and bedspread, part of Nanna’s trousseau. The bed squeaked when she bounced on it. The brass knobs glowed in the soft light cast by a single bulb in the white frosted shade hanging from the high ceiling.