Storm Season

by Pene Henson

  Claudie’s voice is tight as though her throat is closed. “It’s not only that, though, is it? It’s not about your life in Sydney. It’s not about this girl, Nic. Not really. Obviously we have a connection. But we’re never going to work. You’ve worked hard for the things you have. You’re extraordinary. You’re busy and gorgeous and fashionable, and your world is never still. I need something different. And—I don’t want someone to interrupt my life. I’ve built something here. It’s been hard but it’s mine alone. It’s a good life. I don’t want a different one.”

  Lien’s hopes crumble. She tried. She put her heart way out there and it was rejected. And how can she argue when Claudie doesn’t want anything to change?

  “Okay,” Lien says. Her eyes sting. “Okay. I don’t doubt you love your life. And yeah. My life is in the city. It’s important to me. I have to go back to it.”

  Claudie closes her eyes, but her voice is steady as she says, “Exactly.”

  Lien has nothing more to say. Half her heart has gone.

  Lien dresses quickly in her one outfit. She pulls on her muddy brown, ruined Volleys. When she walks into the living room, Claudie’s standing near the door. Her face is closed off.

  “I hope you can figure out how to clean those shoes.” She half smiles, trying to make this okay.

  “Honestly, that’s not my biggest concern,” says Lien. She hates that Claudie still thinks she’s so superficial.

  “I know. I’ll drive you out of here,” Claudie says. She holds the door for Lien, and Lien walks through. They don’t touch.

  9

  Lien climbs into the truck. Claudie faces the steering wheel, but she hesitates, one strong hand on the wheel, the other on the ignition. Lien flashes to a hundred other things those hands can do. Claudie starts the car. Lien’s stomach twists. She can’t make this okay.

  They drive in silence until Claudie turns on the radio.

  The creek’s up ahead. They pass a sign for the campsite. Lien is a whole different person from the one who arrived a few days ago. Well, maybe not a whole different person. She’s still not sure she likes camping. But she made it through an actual storm and had time to think without people on every side. She can cope with silence now.

  Lien turns the radio down. “Before we, um, go our separate ways, I do want to thank you. For the hospitality.”

  Claudie’s eyes flick to her, faintly amused.

  Lien blushes. “Hush. You know what I mean.”

  “I do know.” Claudie’s mouth lifts up at one corner. “I do know. No thanks needed. Honestly.” For a second their gazes meet. Then Claudie turns back to the road.

  When they cross the creek, the water goes halfway up the tires. Higher. They move forward slowly. For a moment it seems as if they’ll need to turn around and head to the cabin. Maybe forever. But Claudie keeps the truck fording through, and too soon they’re on the main road heading down into the town.

  They find Lien’s friends in the information center parking lot. They’re standing about, eying the tents spread on the asphalt before them. The tents have obviously been laid out in the sun to dry, though they still look pretty wet.

  The pleasure of seeing everyone waiting bubbles up inside Lien. As soon as the car stops, she reaches for her door and swings herself out of the truck. She limps across the parking lot.

  “Li!” Beau beams at her, and Annie squeaks with pleasure and bounds over. They both hug her tightly.

  “You survived,” Annie says. “Not that we doubted it for a second.” The others hug Lien too: Raf and Matty, Megan and Kam.

  “With some help,” says Lien. She looks back at the truck. Claudie’s climbed out and is standing awkwardly beside it. She is beautiful and out of place next to Lien’s friends.

  “Hi. You must be Claudia,” says Annie. She holds out a hand to Claudie. “I’ve seen you play. And Ranger Shelley told us heaps about you.”

  Claudie shakes her hand.

  Annie goes on. “We’re so glad you found Lien. No idea what she was doing wandering around in the bush at night.” She frowns at Lien. “But we’d hate to have lost her. And this whole camping outdoors thing is new for us.”

  Claudie smiles. “Yes, it sounds like it. You’re Annie?”

  “I am.” Annie’s cheeks turn pink. She’s clearly pleased to be recognized.

  “And Beau,” says Claudie turning to him. Beau shakes her offered hand.

  Beau says, “It’s good to meet you. Put a face to the person who rescued our girl.”

  “You too. I hear you’ve been tearing up the town.” Claudie has relaxed. The others draw close, and she shakes hands all around.

  Lien has no idea what to say. It’s not as if there are any words that will make this moment right.

  “Okay then,” Claudie says. Her eyes are fixed on Lien but she addresses everyone. “Well, I’d better leave you all to packing out. Thanks for lending Lien to me. Are you going to be gone today?”

  Kam nods. “We’re off to Lismore this evening. The campground’s near there. We’ll set up before the festival tomorrow.”

  “Don’t worry, we won’t let anyone wander off in the dark,” says Beau.

  Claudie glances at him briefly. She gives a slightly forced laugh. “You sure your knee’s okay?” she asks Lien. Her eyes glance down at Lien’s leg then up.

  “I’ll be fine.” Lien is warmed by the concern, even though it’s unnecessary and won’t make Claudie stay.

  “Okay. Well—I really hope everything goes well for you in, you know, life.”

  “You too, Claudie.” She pauses. “Take care.”

  Claudie shuts Lien’s passenger door on the truck and strides around to climb into the driver’s seat and pull the door closed behind her. She starts the truck. She winds down the window to stick an arm out and wave goodbye.

  No one says anything.

  Beau comes close behind Lien. “Hey—” She turns into his arms and buries her head on his shoulder.

  10

  It’s the same view, the same canopy stretching out to the horizon, the same great, wide sky. It’s magnificent. Claudie looks out over it and is dissatisfied as she never was before. She’s been up here three years. She’s spent day after day after month by herself. She thought she was proof against loneliness.

  She’s not.

  It’s been two days. It’s not all bad. The sun and stars rise at the horizon. Kookaburras laugh at her from the railing of the deck, their beaks deadly, their stocky cream and brown bodies puffed up in the wind. Lyrebirds hide in the wet green brush and sing. Silver-gray brushtail possums patrol from the gumtrees, their eyes round and black above pink noses. Chocolate micro bats form clouds of small brown bodies and translucent wings in the evening sky. Claudie’s not really alone. Anyway, Shelley’s right there at the other end of the radio. And Claudie likes the quiet. It’s a relief to have no one taking up her space and inviting her attention. Her brain is easier, moving from bedroom to living room without the possibility of seeing another person.

  But that’s tempered by simply missing Lien. Claudie grew accustomed to the girl. The cabin seems emptier than Claudie thought possible, and she’s always been alone in it. Lien’s bubbling sweetness has infused the air.

  Claudie’s angry with herself, irritated that she let herself get used to something she was always going to lose. Everything was fine. This was her place, could have been hers for another ten years. But now it’s as though her brain is waking up, prickling with pins and needles. It stings to make her empty bed, to sit in her empty living room. It hurts to see the instruments on the wall, and not only because she has no one to play to. She should have spent the last three years working on new music, but she’s let herself stagnate.

  She can work on that though. She lifts her autoharp down and sits, straddled, on the bench. She sets her feet firmly on the floor and raises the autoha
rp to her chest.

  She bought it a few months ago, had it mailed to the local post office so she could pick it up there in the truck. The instrument’s not familiar yet, not like her faithful six string or any of the six guitars she’s got hanging on the walls or carefully stored beside her clothes in the cabin’s few closets, but she’s improving. She’s got the rhythm part pretty well down. Now her fingers are slowly dragging new melodies from the strings. It doesn’t matter that there’s no one to listen except the wildlife. None of these tunes will set the world on fire.

  It’s not long before she sets the instrument aside. She’s itchy with her own imperfections, the electricity in the air, the quiet, and playing an instrument she’s unpracticed in isn’t giving her any satisfaction. She grabs the six-string from its stand. Maybe one of her old songs will pick things up: a cover from the old days, an obvious love song she avoided playing while Lien was in her space.

  But the six string is restless under her fingers, as though the instrument itself wants her to work on something new. The song pulls itself painfully slowly out of the air, out of her fingers and the strings and her voice. She has an idea for the lyrics; she scrawls them on a piece of paper and keeps going.

  Time can drag out here. Before Lien, Claudie tried not to look at her watch unless she had a meeting or event to plan for. Watching a clock lets time seem as if it’s all too real. But time hasn’t dragged since Claudie saw Lien’s phone far off in the dark. And now it’s suddenly night; the stars are high in the sky.

  Claudie’s got plans in the morning. She’s been constrained by the weather for too long now. She’ll get in a quick run early, take the narrow trail that runs through the ferns and brush. It’s about two miles round trip down the closest track and back to the cabin. She can escape her own head for a while.

  She has a meeting with the North Coast Aboriginal Land Council at ten. As the Bundjalung Nation representative, Shelley will be there, of course, but the local elders want other park rangers along as often as possible. On the way to the meeting she’ll check up on the bush regeneration at the western edge of the park and talk to the wildlife rescue staff about the release program. She might need to drop in at a couple of campsites and check everything’s in order. An early night sounds good.

  Claudie packs up the guitar and the harp, rinses her glass, and takes a quick last look to the horizon. The dark trees and sky stare back at her just as they did before Lien appeared. She’s always been here alone. Everything’s okay.

  By early afternoon Claudie’s finished all the things she had booked in for the day. The Land Council made some recommendations and decided how to proceed with protection of artifacts in the park. Claudie will be one of the people policing that protection. She admired the tiny baby bats Jemma and Dawn are parenting with the help of a heat pack and droppers of formula. The western bush regeneration is going well after last year’s bush fires. Many of the tree trunks are blackened and striking among the green, but the new growth has come in. Shoots have grown directly from the trunks and branches, giving the trees a furred look.

  Claudie has no food in the house, so she stops in town for groceries. She’s lived here three years, but she’s not a big part of the community, and everyone’s a stranger in a tiny town. The old guys watch her out the window of the local pub. In the General Store, the owner, Jill, chatters away from her six-foot height.

  “You should have seen the kids’ faces. Santa Claus in the bush! And poor Ern in his suit. Forty-five degrees it was, or forty at least. He was sweating up a storm. But he had to give out all the presents. He’s a good man, Ern. Poor Katrina for that matter, she’s the one who’d’ve had to wash the suit.”

  Claudie smiles and nods and says, “I wish I’d been there.” She should be more involved.

  “Ah well, next time. You’ve got so much to do up in that huge backyard of yours.”

  Claudie heads into the Iron Pot Creek area, drives the main road, and then winds her way around the network of fire roads. She stops over and over to clear the road of branches and small trees and shovel dirt fill into some new potholes. It’s hot work. The temperature is rising, and the air is still heavy with water. She’s glad of the AC in the truck. The fire trails will be critical in a few days once everything has dried off. These summer days, bush fires are a constant threat to people and animals. When it’s hottest and driest, Claudie will be posted on her balcony for long shifts as a lookout.

  On her way back to the cabin, Claudie can’t help but check the upper campsite where Lien’s friends spent some of the past week. It’s her job to keep an eye on the campsites. The kids left the place surprisingly clear, despite the rain. Good for them. Claudie finds a cigarette butt caught in a bush, which could be anyone's but at least affords her a moment of irritation that’s directed at people who aren’t herself.

  She leaves the site without ceremony. It’s not as though Lien spent a single night here. Claudie has no reason to waste her time pining over anything, especially not in this weather.

  It’s a quick trip home now the floods have subsided. She climbs the stairs to the deck. A green heat haze blankets the bush. Eucalyptus oil hangs in the air now the rain has gone. Claudie strips and showers, rids herself of dirt and sweat from the day’s work. She spends her evening with the guitar again. A song’s starting to take shape.

  Shelley’s been asking her to play at the local bar for two years. Claudie tries a few songs: a cover or two, an original. Maybe she can put a set list together. She plays until her fingertips hurt.

  It’s almost ten when she calls Shelley.

  “Was it okay, having that girl there through the storm?” Shelley says.

  “Yeah. She was fine. Just a kid, really.” Claudie’s deflecting. Lien’s twenty-seven and not really just a kid. “She got herself injured on the east slope of the creek, and I happened to hear her. Lucky, really. But you know how it is, I couldn’t get her back to the campsite for a few days.”

  She can hear Shelley’s grimace in her voice as she goes on. “Sounds annoying. I know how much you like sharing your space. Was she a pain in the ass?”

  Claudie’s glad that Shelley is on the phone and not here to see her flush.

  “No. I mean, sure I didn’t want a visitor. I’m not much of a hostess. But she was all right.”

  “Yeah?”

  “So,” says Claudie before Shelley can pry more about Lien. She steels herself to ask the question. “Is there still an open spot to play at Sheila’s?”

  “Sure thing, sis. I’ve been telling you it’s there for about two years. I’ll hook you up.” Claudie imagines Shelley’s face and her raised eyebrows. “When do you want a go? She’s not having live music on Christmas Day or New Year’s Day, too messy. But you can play in a couple of weeks. Or even grab this week if you want?”

  “Okay. Yeah, I can do that.” It’s not as if she hasn’t been practicing.

  “Sure. Way to finish off the year.” Shelley never gushes, but Claudie can hear the pleasure in her voice.

  “You feeling smug?”

  “You know it. So have you picked your songs?”

  “Not—um. No.”

  “Nah, mate. That’s all good. I was being nosy. You can decide on the day. A woman of your talents.”

  “You’ve never heard me play.”

  Shelley hesitates. “Just the one time, when I was coming up to the cabin you were playing your guitar. And then—Claudie, you do know the Internet exists, don’t you?”

  “Right, yeah.”

  Claudie never imagined Shelley would look her up. Her history wasn’t as private as she thought. Shelley could have read a lot of stuff about the band.

  “Don’t get weird on me, Claudia. It was a good band. Though you know me, I’m more of a folk music girl.”

  Claudie drives down the mountain. Every twist in the road brings her closer to her first performan
ce in more than three years. She sits in her car in the parking lot near the pub and taps the steering wheel. She’s spent days choosing her songs for the open mic but she’s pretty sure she has them completely wrong. Maybe if she starts with the Beatles instead.

  Claudie hoists her guitar out of the back. The pub’s sandstone walls open to a pretty rough interior. The bar’s corrugated iron and wood; the carpet is ugly swirls of brown. But the glassware is gleaming and there’s more than one beer on tap. Claudie knows half the people here.

  Across the room, Shelley waves. “Come plant your ass here!” She lifts her solid body to slide over. Her cheeks round out as she smiles.

  Claudie sits between Shelley and tiny Arwen, who’s a local school teacher. Up at the front, Nina from the post office is MC. The conversation whirls around Claudie.

  “A bunch of kids got caught in the storm. I saw them as they left. They came into the shop to buy raincoats. Seemed a bit late for that,” Jill from the General Store says.

  “Yeah, one of them was stuck with Claudie in the cabin for a few days,” says Shelley.

  “Really?” Jill turns to Claudie. “They were nice enough, for soaking wet city kids.”

  “Yeah, she was okay. The one who stayed with me.”

  Shelley catches her eye, and Claudie turns away. The guy singing is pretty good: kind of a country sound with a harmonica attached to his guitar. He wails his way through “You Can’t Always Get What You Want.”

  “You’re up next, Claudia.” MC Nina has stepped over to their group.

  Claudie’s stomach turns. She’s been blocking out the nerves and pushing through, trying not to think about the last time she played. But now it all comes flooding in. The bar, the lights, her band. She closes her eyes. She thinks of the chords, of the chromatic passing chord that she wants to nail.