House for All Seasons

by Jenn J. McLeod

  As the most popular girl in school, Amber was the best choice for the banner job. She knew everyone—especially the boys. With Sara not so outgoing, the job of ensuring everyone wrote a farewell message before Poppy and Cait tied it to the bridge was perfect for her. Tiny Sara was so fragile-looking that Poppy was happy not to give her a job at all, but she also wanted to give Sara a reason to participate in the day so she might forget about her responsibilities at home—for a while.

  ‘Ouch!’ Amber cried out. ‘I said stop bumping into me, Poppy. You just crushed my finger.’

  *

  The sound of a chortling magpie jerked her awake, the sudden movement sending the bird and two of its mates flapping and squawking for cover in one of the liquidambar trees. ‘Ouch!’ Poppy plucked her finger from between the two moving parts of the swing seat, glad to be awake. For years she’d avoided thinking too much about what happened that day down by the Calingarry Creek Bridge. That’s what made the Dandelion House inheritance so puzzling.

  Why us? Why do you want us to have it, Gypsy? Especially me.

  The sharp, stabbing pain made her wince as she inspected her finger, catching a glimpse of her wristwatch at the same time.

  ‘Five o’clock!’ She’d slept all afternoon. Her foot was still sleeping. ‘Ouch!’ She hoisted herself up by the metal struts of the swing seat and hobbled on the pins and needles-infested foot until normal sensation returned.

  Eli would be here in an hour.

  After showering, she pulled on jeans and a top, unconcerned about the crinkled appearance of the squashed cotton.

  ‘So it’s got a few wrinkles. Big deal. So does Eli.’ She chuckled, checking herself in the dresser mirror. ‘That’s very clever, Poppy. Maybe you should ditch the day job and try your hand at comedy.’

  A knock at the door wiped the smile from her face. She hoped it was the old man, reneging on the dinner arrangement.

  ‘G’day.’ Eli didn’t attempt to open the screen door, remaining on the porch, an old esky in one hand, a blanket in the other. ‘Ready?’

  ‘Ready for what?’

  ‘Dinner. Come on.’

  ‘Come on where? I thought you were going to use the stove.’

  ‘That was your idea, not mine. Fish is meant for the fire. You’re Johnno Hamilton’s daughter. I thought you’d know that.’

  She did, of course. Johnno used to say the same thing, once upon a time.

  ‘But I—’

  ‘Grab your coat and let’s get a move on. Gotta get the fire goin’ ’fore dark.’

  He was already striding down the porch steps and towards the back of the house as Poppy unhooked a hoodie from the hallstand, tied the sleeves around her hips and followed, almost running to keep up, wondering where the frail limping old man was that she’d given a lift to earlier today.

  ‘What’s the dog’s name?’ Poppy managed to ask while catching her breath.

  ‘Shrapnel.’

  ‘Odd thing to call a dog.’

  ‘Not really. Not when he’s a bloody pain in the arse you can’t get rid of.’

  She might have giggled at the explanation, only it hardly seemed appropriate. She was starting to like Eli. Anyone who called a spade a spade was all right in her book. Poppy was a black-and-white girl. She detested grey and hated fence sitters even more, even though impartiality was a prerequisite in her business. Tolerating something wasn’t the same as liking it in her book of life.

  ‘So how far are we walking exactly?’ she asked after a few minutes, the isolation and the growing darkness tripping a little warning bell in her head. They’d left the open paddock area at the rear of the main house, followed the water’s edge, and were now blazing a trail into the bush. ‘Should I be leaving breadcrumbs?’

  ‘No need. We’re here. By the river. See?’

  A campfire was ready for lighting and Eli wasted no time striking a match and burying it beneath several scrunched-up sheets of strategically placed newspaper pages.

  ‘Nice to see that particular news rag getting what it deserves,’ Poppy said, trying to make conversation.

  ‘Don’t read ’em much meself. Not interesting or truthful in my experience.’

  She was about to say he sounded just like her father. Instead, she asked what she could do to help with dinner.

  ‘In there.’ He nodded at the esky. ‘There’s plates. Should be a lemon that needs cuttin’. Tomato and some rabbit food in there too. Thought I should, you comin’ from the city and all. You look the salady type.’

  ‘Oh, right. Thanks.’ Poppy wasn’t sure what to make of such a description. She sure as hell hadn’t had anything too salady of late and it had been a long time since anyone even cared about her diet, except Max, of course. Good old Max.

  ‘Okay, fish is on. Won’t be too long.’

  She did as instructed, while Eli took a small shovel to the river’s edge and started scraping the surface.

  Eww, please, not witchetty grubs!

  To her surprise and amusement, Eli returned juggling four small foil parcels from one hand to the other without missing a beat.

  ‘Where did you learn to juggle?’

  ‘Best way I know not to burn your hands on hot potatoes.’

  ‘That’s clever.’

  ‘Yeah, well, not so clever with live grenades.’ He grinned and then went back to the in-ground fire for a cast iron pot.

  ‘Grenades?’

  ‘Happened in Vietnam. You know there’s always one crazy clown who thinks some dumb-arse trick will give his mates a bit of a laugh. Until … boom! No more laughin’, if you know what I mean.’

  ‘Oh!’ she said, watching him unwrap and drop two steaming potatoes on each plate.

  ‘Here we go.’ Gnarly fingers upturned the pot, tipping a round of baked bread onto the rug. ‘Ahh now, some things are worth dyin’ for. Fresh beer damper from a camp oven is one of ’em.’

  The smell of fresh-baked bread and hot beer both confused and tantalised her tastebuds.

  Dinner was ready.

  ‘This is better than good, Eli,’ Poppy said between bites. ‘Especially the fish. Thank you.’

  ‘Told ya so. Only one thing better and that’s catchin’ ’em then cookin’ ’em on the spot. Don’t get much fresher than that. Maybe we can drop a line tomorrow. Start fillin’ up that freezer again. Whadaya say?’

  ‘It’s been a long time since I did any fishing.’

  ‘Got somethin’ better to do with your time here?’

  ‘Look, I’m in Calingarry Crossing because I have to be, not by choice.’

  ‘Really?’

  Poppy ignored the man’s arched eyebrow with its wayward white hairs standing to attention, concentrating her gaze on the fire. ‘I’m not looking to stay and it’s certainly no fishing holiday.’

  ‘Gotta eat, don’t ya? And you are Johnno Hamilton’s daughter.’

  She was. Maybe he was right. Maybe she should go fishing. If nothing else, it would fill in some time. It would be nice to know if she’d managed to inherit one of her father’s good traits; Johnno knew how to catch a big fish.

  ‘Okay. Come to think of it, Eli, maybe I will. I gather you’ve got a spare line?’

  ‘You betcha. You can have Johnno’s gear.’

  ‘I can have Johnno’s gear?’ she repeated, tempted to say that was more than she’d ever had from her father before. Instead, she drew her gaze away from the fire, unfolded her legs from their crossed position and leaned back on flattened palms. Poppy was unusually relaxed and she didn’t want to spoil the feeling with sarcasm and anger.

  *

  The pair had shared a dinner under the glow of a pretty sunset of orange and pink. Now Poppy stared at a starry night coming into focus, a thousand tiny lights pinpricking the sky with its waxing crescent moon.

  ‘Eli, can I ask you something?’ Poppy took the silence as a yes. ‘Did you know Johnno before … I mean at school, maybe?’

  He shook his head. ‘Vietnam. We was all there to
gether—him, me, Morrie. I s’pose you gunna ask me about war stories now.’

  ‘Not exactly.’

  I was, she thought while sliding forward so she could lean her head back against a log.

  ‘But I was wondering, about Johnno …’ She faltered, unused to verbalising personal thoughts, especially about her father. ‘We were strangers. I missed him when I was growing up, the way he was forever coming in and out of my life. Whenever I started getting used to having him around, he’d go again. Even when he was there, he wasn’t—not really. You know what I mean?’

  Eli nodded.

  For a long time Poppy had thought life would be better if she never saw her father at all. She couldn’t miss what she never had. But no, Johnno kept coming back, and Poppy kept trying to impress him, hoping each time he’d stay.

  He never did.

  ‘Mum seemed to understand him and Gypsy was always sticking up for him. By the time I was old enough to realise Vietnam was partly to blame I—’

  ‘Partly!’ Eli scoffed. ‘That’s mighty generous of you. I blame the blasted hellhole for all kinda shit in my life. Deserves it too, if you ask me.’ He twisted the lid off a liquor bottle and tossed it into the dwindling fire. Then he half-filled an enamel mug and handed it to Poppy. ‘You was angry at him for not being there when you was a kid. Makes sense to me.’

  ‘I think I’ve been angry with him all my life. But after … after Mum and Ben and Grandma …’ She tried washing down the quiver from her voice with a swig of the port. ‘At first I didn’t understand how he could just up and leave me. I’d lost them too, you know?’ Poppy wasn’t sure why she assumed Eli would know, but from the nod and the sympathetic face, he seemed to. He seemed very familiar with her life. ‘You know what happened? You know about that night?’

  ‘You mean the night of the fire?’ Eli threw back his port, smacked his lips together and refilled his mug. He passed the bottle to Poppy. She declined with a shake of her head. ‘I know all right. Same night every year him and me, we’d get together and share a bottle of port just like we’re doin’ now. Happens less these days, but I see him every now and then, when he comes back.’

  ‘So he comes back here to fish but he can’t make it to Sydney to see me. Humph!’ Anger sparked inside her belly; her words were tinged with bitterness. She sounded like a brat, but she didn’t care.

  This situation was perfect. The perfect outlet. She could get years of frustration and resentment off her chest right here, right now. Max would call it tossing a tanty. He was the only one to ever see Poppy lose it, and only once. No need for good impressions or diplomacy with old Eli. In a few weeks, days more like it, she’d be gone from Calingarry Crossing, never, never, never to return. She drained the dregs of port from her cup and found the hypnotic flickering of flames helped her start.

  ‘His indifference still hurts, Eli. It hurt a lot more when I was young. I tried to make it up to him. I tried everything. I only wanted him to be proud of me, to accept me for the person I am. I wanted him to forgive me, love me, see me hurting too.’

  ‘So you started running away. You thought that by disappearin’ you’d get his attention.’ Eli poured them another cup of port, the glug, glug, glug echoing inside the enamel mug.

  This time Poppy didn’t refuse.

  ‘I ran away a lot. But mostly I came out here to see Gypsy, so I guess that didn’t really count. Johnno seemed quite okay about it. I used to wonder why when half the town thought old Gyps wasn’t the full quid and the other half were convinced she was a witch, boiling kids and serving them up for dinner.’

  Eli half-laughed, half-choked on his port, spraying a mouthful towards the fire and sending a shower of sparks into the sky. ‘Well I’ll be buggered!’ He wiped the back of a wrist over his chin. ‘Boiled kids! I’ll drink to that.’

  ‘Yeah, well, I had to run away for real, didn’t I.’ Remorse ground Poppy’s voice flat, her stare unwavering even though her eyes were dry and burning from the flames and smoke. ‘I ran away that day. I ran so he’d have to come get me. That’s why he wasn’t at home when … when the fire started.’

  ‘Where did ya think you’d go?’

  ‘No idea, just anywhere but here. There was nothing for me in Calingarry Crossing. I’d got all the way to Saddleton when the police picked me up. They called my parents. Johnno was mad. It was cold and the baby … He left Mum and Ben and Grandma in the house and they …’ The words caught in her chest.

  ‘You think your father blames you because they died that night?’

  Poppy dragged her legs up to her body and wrapped an arm around her knees, hugging them close, the barrier in place. ‘No, Eli,’ she said wryly, bracing against another wave of bitterness. ‘I think he blames me because he lived.’

  She lowered her face to her knees and gave in to tears for the third or was it the fourth time since landing back in Calingarry Crossing. But as usual, whenever she thought of Johnno these days, anger quickly siphoned any tears away.

  ‘What other reason did he have for leaving me all the time? And why did he come here every anniversary rather than share his pain with me, his daughter?’ The port, the fire, the memories had all put Poppy on a slow simmer. ‘Did he not think I was just as devastated and just as sad? I tried tracking him down plenty of times. When I eventually located him, living some bizarre back-to-basics life in Nimbin, it took him forever to acknowledge me and write back. I don’t even know when I last called him Dad.’ She tried putting a lid on the emotions bubbling away inside her, but all that did was build pressure, forcing her to her feet. ‘I’m so angry. I know he lost his son, but he had a daughter. He had me. I was there. I always had been there. I tried to make up for it afterwards. I tried being both son and daughter. I went fishing, played sports. I was right there in front of him, trying to be good at everything, trying to make him proud, trying—’

  ‘—to be noticed?’

  ‘Yes, yes.’

  Ten years ago Poppy would have hurled herself onto the ground and cried until her anger plugged the tears. Over the years, she’d learned to skip the bawl-her-eyes-out part, getting straight to angry. She kicked her toe into the ground and sent a shower of dirt into the dark.

  ‘And where the hell was he when I was wanting him to notice me?’

  Running. Lost.

  She tossed the remaining port from her mug. She’d had enough—of everything.

  ‘Every decision I’ve made, even being a journalist, has been to make him proud of me.’

  Eli’s voice remained the same—calm, controlled, caring. ‘Everyone who went to war, specially that war, stayed lost in some way. Did ya stop to think maybe your dad was proud and that maybe he didn’t want you traipsin’ off to war-torn countries? Why did ya?’

  ‘Why did I what?’ she said, sounding a little short-tempered.

  ‘Go to war-torn countries? Put yourself at risk.’

  ‘I don’t know. One minute I was anchoring the late news in Newcastle, then …’ She shrugged. ‘I heard about a foreign correspondent position opening in the Middle East. I thought, maybe going to war, seeing what soldiers go through, would somehow help me better understand Johnno.’

  ‘Waste of time,’ Eli offered very matter of factly. ‘No other war like Vietnam. No way to prepare for it. No way to deal with the aftermath. Wives and families tried the best they knew how. They prepared ’emselves for the physical injuries when their men came home, but no one told ’em how to deal with emotional injury. Some families managed. Some didn’t. Comin’ home’s not easy sometimes.’ He looked purposefully at Poppy before downing another mouthful of port. ‘Hard for soldiers, specially when they knew they was leaving mates behind—fightin’, hurt, dead. The guilt kinda tore some blokes in two. Your dad didn’t cope so well.’

  They sat in silence, the flames fading, but clearly not their memories. For Poppy, talking about her father like this was not something she’d done ever before, at least not since Gypsy. Not even to Max. Something in Eli
made her feel it was okay. A tiny sense of relief even found its way into the mix of emotions.

  ‘Thank you for dinner and … for everything, Eli.’

  ‘We should call it a night. Let’s get you home.’

  There was that word again: home.

  She nodded and gathered up the rug and esky, waiting as Eli emptied a billycan of water over the remaining embers. Then they headed back to the house.

  *

  ‘Before I say goodnight, Poppy, I want to tell you something about your dad.’

  ‘Oh?’ she said hesitantly. ‘What about him?’

  ‘Somethin’ I think he’d want you to know, so hear me out.’ Eli lifted one foot onto the stonework at the base of the veranda, the area around them illuminated by the sliver of light that had made its way from the kitchen, down the hallway and out the front door. ‘You wanna smoke?’ he asked, shoving a pouch of pre-made rollies in her direction.

  ‘No. Thanks.’ Poppy felt sufficiently wound up to say yes and feel justified, but she crossed her arms in front of her body, willing the Nicorette patch to kick in, her gaze focused on where the toe of her boot chipped away at the dirt.

  ‘Your father’s problem is he’s always been a sentimental man.’ He raised his hand to silence her before she had time to argue. ‘I knew this because some blokes only ever mentioned their missus when they was dug in and trying to while away the time. Not your Johnno. He was always gasbaggin’ about his life. He loved your mother and talked about her like I heard no man. That bloke was one big son of a contradiction.

  ‘When I think of your dad, I think of them big city skyscrapers. On the inside, strong as steel, foundations rock-solid. Johnno wouldn’t have kept going if he’d been any other way. But on the outside—glass. Think about them images of 9/11, how towering structures made of steel can crumple given a powerful enough enemy. Enemies come in all shapes and sizes, remember that, Poppy. Some you can’t miss, just like you can’t miss some dunghill heaps. Others you only know about after you tread on ’em, on account of the stink. Sometimes the enemy is real and sometimes in our heads. The trick is to recognise ’em.’ He stood straight again, gathered up his belongings. ‘Anyways, I’ll say g’night.’