One Summer Between Friends

by Trish Morey

  ‘So tell me what Tatura has going for it.’

  ‘For a start, it hosts the second biggest international dairy festival in the southern hemisphere every January.’ He paused to let the import of that sink in. ‘And if that isn’t grand enough to impress you, I’ll have you know the local bakery won a prize in the Great Australian Vanilla Slice contest two years running.’

  ‘Wow, I am impressed! But who gets to host the biggest international dairy festival?’

  He screwed up his nose. ‘We don’t like to talk about it back in Tat,’ he said. His eyes were brown, she noticed. A much darker brown than she’d first thought, almost mocha, and crinkled at the edges when he smiled. It took her a couple of beats and the final sip of her wine to remember where she was in the conversation.

  ‘You didn’t want to be a dairy farmer, like your dad?’

  He shook his head. ‘No, I was always better with words than with animals. I was the only kid in the family who didn’t have a pet, let alone who wanted to get up close and personal with the cows, a big disappointment for my father, let me tell you. It was just lucky my younger brother made up for my failings. Travis is a natural. We called him the cow whisperer from the time he was a little kid, and it was kind of a joke then. But not anymore.’ He held up his hand, curling his pinky. ‘He’s got those girls wrapped around his little finger. He gets the best yields in the district. Nobody knows how he does it.’

  She had precious little knowledge of cows, beyond the existence of the small herds that grazed the fields by the airport and down near Old Settlement Beach, and whose sloppy cow pats you had to dodge on your way up the hill to get to the remains of the Catalina flying boat that had crashed in 1948. He might as well have been talking about a different planet, but he was easy to listen to and he made it all sound fascinating. He stood and disappeared inside and she was just thinking how wrong she’d been about him when he’d stepped off the plane, and that he was far nicer than she’d assumed, when a moment later he was back with a second bottle and topping up her glass.

  Another one? She glanced at her watch. How long had she been here?

  ‘I’ve got it,’ he said as he filled up his own glass.

  ‘Got what?’

  ‘Who you remind me of.’

  She blinked and sat up straighter. Is that why he’d been staring at her? ‘Who?’

  ‘Nicole Ritchie.’

  ‘Oh.’ She grimaced, not entirely sure whether to be flattered or not. ‘Is that a good thing?’

  He smiled, almost apologetically. ‘I think she’s kinda cute. I thought you looked familiar when I met you, but it’s the way you’ve got your hair up today with all the ends coming loose around your face that made me realise.’

  Was he flirting with her? Was he saying she looked cute? Floss had two ways of doing her hair: scraped back in a ponytail when Annie hadn’t stolen all her hair ties, or pinned in a messy bun when she had, like she’d had to do this morning. She put her hands to the loose ends now, trying to poke them away.

  ‘Don’t,’ he said, putting his hand on hers, not holding it, just resting it there, warm and real. ‘It looks good like that,’ he said, his fingers now at her hair, undoing her repair work while his eyes returned to hers. ‘You look good.’

  The world seemed to stop. All she knew was the tingle of her scalp where his fingers had brushed and the thudding of her heart, and dark eyes so compelling she could fall into them. Eyes that seemed to be coming closer, so there was every chance she would.

  A sudden squall riffed violently through the trees as the heavens unleashed a burst of rain. Big fat drops hurling onto the veranda at a forty-five-degree angle and splatting hard against anything in their way. Against them.

  ‘Quick,’ he said, grabbing the wine and bolting for the door, ‘let’s get inside.’

  They were half drenched by the time they made it under cover, the rain coming in sheets now, tearing through the vegetation and thundering on the roof. They stood there dripping wet and looking at each other in disbelief, then started laughing.

  And somehow, suddenly, she was in Matt’s arms and he was kissing her. Only she was kissing back. He tasted of the wine they’d shared, he tasted of man, he tasted of heat, and it was intoxicating. It felt so good—so bloody good—to have his hands on her back and skimming over her breasts because it had been so bloody long.

  She had no idea how long they stood like that, how long they kissed, but when finally he pulled away, his breathing ragged and hard like he’d run a marathon, she didn’t want to let his mouth go, even if it was to nuzzle at her ear and send his warm breath down her collar.

  ‘It’s my last night on the island,’ he whispered, his hands roaming low down her back, his fingers squeezing, ‘and I was wondering …’

  22

  It was one of those days—the days Jules dreaded because of what it could do to bend her mother emotionally out of shape. Birthdays, Father’s Day, Christmas. But she was getting in early and hopefully heading off any trouble. She fashioned a bouquet of bright hibiscus flowers and fern fronds from the garden to give Pru. She knew exactly where it would end up, but she didn’t mind. Whatever made her mum feel better on a day like today was all right with Jules.

  She called Della, who came running to pick up the box of cookies they’d made together. Two batches. Della had chosen chocolate chip, because they were her favourites, while Jules had chosen raisin and oatmeal, because she’d figured they were packed with goodness and half a meal in themselves and if her mother only ate those …

  ‘Okay,’ she said, ‘let’s go see Nana and Papa.’

  They drove past Dot’s Store on the way and Jules felt weird thinking Sarah was probably somewhere inside. She thought about her unanswered invitation and felt her irritation spike. Sure, Sarah could ignore her and not answer if that’s what she wanted to do, but how hard was it to give a simple yes or no? The non-answer pissed Jules off. She had a week before she had to be back in Sydney to start her radiotherapy and she wanted to deal with this before then.

  And really, what could Sarah do if Jules just turned up at the store out of the blue? She would have to deal with Jules’s request then. Besides, it wasn’t as if she’d never shopped at Dot’s before now. Why shouldn’t she simply turn up?

  Just not today. Today she had more important things to do.

  Finally, they were past the store, and she flexed her tight fingers on the steering wheel and exhaled a long breath. That was the trouble with a twenty-five kilometre an hour speed limit, it took too long to drive past anywhere you didn’t want to be.

  A minute later, she pulled up in Pru’s driveway and unclicked Della from her child seat. Immediately her daughter ran inside, calling for her nana, while Jules collected her bag and the biscuits and flowers. She was just shutting her door when Della came running out again, her little face stricken.

  ‘Mummy, Mummy. Nana won’t wake up.’

  Dear god, no. Enough already!

  Jules wasn’t overly religious, she’d attended Sunday school and services at the local Anglican church for years growing up, before she’d turned into a rebellious teenager and tossed religion aside. But it was an appeal to any higher being that ran through her mind as she rushed inside behind her daughter, an appeal that her worst fears weren’t about to be realised.

  ‘See, Mummy?’ Della said, as she stopped in the living room.

  There was Pru, lying on her face on the sofa, one arm dangling. Motionless. Until all of a sudden she snorted loudly and then kept on snoring.

  Jules’s stalled heart found a reassuring beat. So not dead. Thank you, God, because even if you’re not there, someone answered my prayers.

  And then she got down on her knees next to her mother. There was a wine cask on the coffee table. Empty. An empty glass fallen beside it. No prizes for working out how or why her mother had passed out.

  Oh, Mum.

  ‘What’s wrong with Nana?’ said Della, looking serious now, pulling out the t
wo fingers she’d had wedged in her mouth just long enough to ask.

  ‘She’s not feeling well,’ said Jules, patting her mother’s face. ‘Come on, Mum, wake up.’

  It took a few more attempts before Pru snorted and stirred. ‘Wha—?’ she said, blinking into the midmorning light.

  ‘It’s Jules and Della. We were going to visit Papa’s memorial. Remember?’

  Her mother blinked again, before her face creased and she made a keening sound. ‘I was trying to forget,’ she said, when at last she could talk, beating one hand against the sofa. ‘I was trying to forget.’

  ‘I know,’ Jules said, reaching down to hug her mother and draw her up. ‘I know. Come on, sit up. You’ll be much more comfortable then.’

  With a mighty effort, Jules got her mother upright—but only because Pru was such a lightweight now.

  ‘I’m so thirsty,’ Pru said, eyeing the empty glass. ‘Is there something to drink?’

  ‘I’ll get it,’ Jules said, whipping the glass and carton out of the way, returning with a glass of water.

  Her mother drank it down quickly. ‘Oh, you don’t have a painkiller to go with another one of those, do you?’

  ‘Are you all right, Nana?’ Della asked as Jules refilled her glass and searched through her bag for painkillers.

  ‘Just a bit muddle-headed today,’ Pru said. ‘I’ll be fine.’

  ‘Here,’ Jules said, handing Pru a couple of capsules and another glass of water.

  Her mother took them. ‘There,’ she said, with too bright a smile to be real. Especially when her hair and the rest of her looked completely shell-shocked. ‘I’m sure I’ll feel better in no time.’

  ‘You were asweep,’ said Della, with the gravity of a four-year-old who knew this wasn’t quite right.

  ‘I know,’ Pru said with a wobbly smile. ‘I got very tired and suddenly it was way too far to get to bed, and I decided to curl up on the sofa instead.’

  Jules sighed, relief dragging through her veins. Her mum was okay. She picked up the flowers and handed the cookies to Della to deliver.

  ‘I’m sorry, Mum, because it’s so not right, and it’s so not happy, but happy anniversary anyway.’

  ‘It would have been our fortieth anniversary today,’ said Pru to nobody in particular as she knelt in the damp sandy earth by the memorial, the empty grave, that bore her husband’s name. Palms bordered the small cemetery that was so close to the beach that the sound of the waves hitting the sand melded with the sound of the breeze rattling through the palms and her mother’s lost and lonely voice.

  ‘Forty years, Greg. Who would have believed you could put up with me for that long?’ Her mother sucked in air. ‘Except you didn’t, of course. I’m not blaming either of us for that, but I do miss you, Greg. And I wake up every day, wishing you were here.’

  Jules waited a distance away, resting her hand on Della’s head while the girl clung to her leg, fingers in her mouth while her nana spoke to a papa Della would never remember meeting.

  For Pru and Jules, the day Greg had been lost was impossible to forget. It had been blowy, but nothing out of the ordinary, nothing Jules’s seafaring father couldn’t handle with both hands tied behind his back. So when the boat didn’t come back at the appointed time, everyone assumed they’d hit the mother of all fishing grounds and were making the most of it while the light lasted. But as the hours stretched out and there was no sight of the returning vessel and no contact, concerns grew. As dark fell, Jules went over to her mum’s place so she wouldn’t be alone as they waited for news.

  But, as the long night hours eked out, there was none.

  The search crews were out early, a police rescue helicopter from Sydney, planes from Port Macquarie, along with the police cruiser from Lord Howe. For hours Jules waited with her mother, hanging out for the phone to ring, dreading it at the same time. As friends dropped by in the following days to lend support, Jules had clung to Della. ‘We’ll find your daddy and your papa,’ she’d told the tiny infant, who was too young to know what was going on, but sensitive enough to the vibes to know that something must be happening.

  And when the call finally came, it was the local policeman.

  ‘Jules,’ he said. ‘They’ve found wreckage from a boat. A bucket and some fishing gear. A life buoy. It’s from Snapper.’

  A thump of her heart before she could ask, ‘And the crew?’

  ‘I’m sorry.’ He paused and again her heart thumped before it seemed to stick in her chest. ‘There’s no sign.’

  Nobody gave up hope of finding survivors—at least, not at first. But eventually the search wound down, and their hopes died with it. No boat. No bodies. Nothing but a few random items and some shattered pieces of hull.

  But Pru hadn’t given up. She struggled up to the Intermediate Hill lookout every day for a week to search the horizon herself, because she couldn’t believe that Greg was gone and wasn’t coming back, and she couldn’t just stay at home and do nothing but wait. They’d been married for the best part of forty years, after all. You didn’t just accept that your life partner was gone and get on with it.

  When the inquiry finally came, it pointed to a catastrophic failure of the engine, leading to an explosion, so sudden that there would have been no warning, no time to get out a Mayday message. No hope, which meant no answers.

  And that was half the problem, Jules figured. The not knowing.

  Her mother had never been averse to a glass of wine before. A moscato or a bit of sweet fizz. But after Greg had gone, she’d really settled into drinking. For escape. For relief. For company at night until she collapsed into bed, and for sleep that came with no dreams. Filling the void that came with not knowing.

  For a while, Jules had understood. She could see how it had happened. She’d felt the same kind of shell-shock, but she’d had Della to take care of to keep her grounded, to hold her together when otherwise she could have fallen apart. She missed her father so very badly. She missed him every day. But she’d never loved Richard. Not like Pru had loved Greg.

  Her mother laid the flowers Jules had brought at the foot of the headstone.

  But right now, unlike her mother, Jules wasn’t concerned with the dead. She was increasingly worried about the living. Not just for herself and her own ongoing treatment. And not just because she knew Sarah was back on the island and, sooner or later, Jules was somehow going to have to face her and the past. But also—mostly—for the way her mother was trying to drown her grief within the cardboard walls of a wine cask. Because she had no idea how to fix that.

  23

  Sarah was up a ladder in the store, hard at work applying orange oil to the stripped and cleaned shelves when she heard a car pull up outside, followed by the slide of van doors opening then slamming shut. She heard voices, young ones, and the clumping of feet up the short flight of steps to the veranda, before the door flew open, the bell rendered redundant as a clutch of kids burst in, talking potato chips and Twisties as they scattered through the shop.

  Not tourists then, Sarah thought, as she backed down the ladder and pulled off her gloves. Unless they were the kind of tourists who could afford to bring the whole family on holidays with them.

  ‘What can I do for you?’ she said to two teenagers who were standing at the counter with a collection of snacks.

  They peered at her strangely, a blonde girl about sixteen who looked almost familiar and a boy just as tall but who looked younger, and who Sarah assumed was the girl’s brother, while from the back of the store came the tinkle of bottles and a firm, ‘No. Put that back,’ from a voice she’d grown up with. A voice she hadn’t heard for something like five years. ‘You can’t have that. Here, take this, will you?’

  A sizzle went down Sarah’s spine. She looked at the girl again and realised why she looked familiar. She was looking at an almost Floss; from back in their high school years and with the addition of a stud in her nose, but yes, Floss, with her clear blue eyes and wayward hair.

&
nbsp; And suddenly the real Floss was there too, her mouth half open, flanked by two more boys. She held a basket weighed down by wine bottles in one hand while the other braced a child on her hip. Floss blinked, looking like a mutton bird recently crash landed and wanting to run away and hide but confused about which hole to run into. ‘Sarah,’ she said. ‘I didn’t—’

  Sarah attempted a smile that was almost crushed under the weight of their history. ‘Hi, Floss. I’m just helping out while Mum recovers from her hip operation.’

  ‘Oh. I’d heard, but I didn’t realise …’

  That she was back? The island telegraph definitely wasn’t what it used to be. Or maybe people had figured Floss wouldn’t want to know, because of what Sarah had done to her. The poisoned cloud hung in the air between them, fat with the memory of the day the hairline crack in their friendship had turned into a chasm. The day Floss had disclosed to her and Jules that she was twelve weeks’ pregnant with her fourth baby. The day Sarah’s jealousy—the jealousy that had been brimming under the surface and that she’d battled so long to contain—had turned toxic and spilled over.

  Sarah momentarily closed her eyes, wishing she could blot out what had come next, but there was no forgetting her ugly words. She’d ended up screaming at Floss that it wasn’t fair that she could get pregnant so easily when she already had three babies, and when every period was another slap in Sarah’s face, especially when she’d tried so hard—so damned hard. That she was sick of trying to be happy for everyone else when happiness was so unequally shared. And why did Floss have to be such a fucking fertility goddess when Sarah had to miss out? She’d completely lost it that day, her anguish and rage and jealousy gushing out. A flood of envy and heartbreak. Unrelenting. Unforgiveable.