White Sands of Summer

by J. H. Fletcher

  Seven-year-old Jess had been playing with friends but it got dark early at that time of year, with cold nights too, so it wasn’t long before she headed home where there would be a fire in the grate and warmth and Mama waiting to greet her.

  Except when she got there the house was dark, with neither fire nor warmth. No Mama, either.

  She waited. Mama would soon be back. She was out visiting, that was what it was. Or gone to the shops and forgotten the time. It was nearly dark now, scary dark, but Mama would be back soon. Jess would be a good girl; Mama would not be pleased if she came home and found her crying. But it was hard not to, because Jess was scared; Mama had never been so late before. Jess had never had to sit all alone in a cold and empty house before. In the dark.

  She tried hard but it was no use, and tears began to trickle down her face. She had a small furry bear that Mama had given her for Christmas. She called him Mr Teddy. She clutched Mr Teddy close but he didn’t comfort her, not really, and still the tears ran down.

  It seemed a long time before Shannon came home and Jess had never been more pleased to see anyone in her life.

  Shannon switched on the light and looked around at the empty room. ‘What’s going on?’

  Jess shook her head helplessly. She didn’t know. She didn’t know what was going on or where Mama was or anything.

  Shannon was a big girl, much older than she was. Shannon would know what to do.

  ‘Any sign of Dad?’

  Jess shook her head.

  Shannon lit the fire in the grate. Jess sat still; if she tried to help she knew she’d only be in the way.

  ‘Where is my mama?’

  ‘I don’t know where your mama is,’ Shannon said.

  ‘Will she be home soon?’

  ‘I don’t know.’

  Shannon’s first reaction was impatience, mainly with Grace for going off, who knew where, and leaving her little girl to come home to an empty house. No fire, no explanation, nothing. It wasn’t what a mother was supposed to do, was it? A small portion of her exasperation was directed at Jess, too, for being scared about what was probably nothing. Spoilt Jess, always the favourite, always the one getting the treats. Then she looked at the woebegone little face and impatience vanished. She remembered how she had felt when Mum had died, how lonely and scared she’d been.

  She’d been the same age as Jess was now.

  An unexpected warmth filled her. Impulsively she went to the little girl and put her arms around her.

  ‘Don’t worry, she’ll be home very soon.’

  Jess’s tearful face looked up at her. ‘You really think so?’

  ‘Really and truly,’ Shannon said.

  The fire was burning nicely now.

  ‘I’m going to see if there’s any food in the cupboard,’ Shannon said.

  She came back with some bread and a cut of cold mutton left over from the weekend. She put the kettle on the hob to boil. Things were much better now but Jess still felt sad.

  ‘When is she coming back?’

  ‘Very soon. You’ll see.’

  They ate the food. Shannon made some tea but Jess didn’t like tea and drank milk instead.

  Still no sign of Grace.

  ‘I’m going to fetch Dad,’ Shannon said when she’d finished her tea. ‘Leave the fire alone, OK? It’ll be all right till I get back.’

  After a while she came back with him, Dad with the molasses smell of crushed cane on him. He smelt of beer, too, and it soon became clear he had no idea where Mama had gone.

  No note; no nothing. Then Shannon went into Mama’s bedroom and Jess heard her open the clothes cupboard door. She came back into the living room with a grave face and spoke to Dad so softly that Jess couldn’t hear what she was saying.

  Dad went into the bedroom and came back.

  ‘That’s it, then.’ He stared at the fire, running his fingers through his thinning hair. The flames carved dark shadows in his sunken cheeks. ‘Bloody hell,’ he said softly. ‘Bloody hell.’

  A week later Travis Harcourt heard a rumour that Grace had run off with some dago bloke.

  ‘There was a feller sniffing around,’ Syd said. ‘Stevie Garcia, I think his name was.’

  A man was shamed, talking about a missing wife, but Travis poked about a bit, finally came up with some dinkum oil on the bloke.

  ‘Slime on the hoof’ was what one man called him. Something of a druggie but had a way with the sheilas. My oath he had.

  ‘Where do I get hold of him?’

  ‘Blokes like him never stay put for long. Last I heard he was in Airlie Beach. Watch out if you find him. They say he carries a blade.’

  ‘Mate, I need to talk to him about my wife. Blade or no bloody blade.’

  Maybe it was just as well there was no sign of Stevie Garcia at the Beach. Yeah, he’d been there but had moved on, like the man had said.

  ‘Got a woman with him? Couldn’t tell you, mate, but it’s very likely. Stevie always had a woman with him. Most times more’n one, you want the truth. Anything special about this one?’

  But there were things you couldn’t tell a stranger.

  Travis continued to ask around but got no joy anywhere. The trail was cold. Stevie had gone and by the look of it had taken Grace with him.

  For months both he and Jess woke in the morning telling themselves this was the day she would come back but she never did. Eventually Travis came to accept the reality, that Grace had gone walkabout and wouldn’t be coming back.

  Jess never did.

  After Mama left, Jess’s world was a dark and empty place. She was alone, so scared that there were days when she could hardly breathe. Every time she came to the corner of a building she was afraid what might be waiting for her on the other side and she had to stop and peer around it before daring to go any further.

  Night time was the worst, because in the darkness the boogy men were waiting for her, black men with spears and streaks of white on their faces and fierce eyes. Waiting in the shadows. She dared not cry out because if she did they would leap out at her, so when she blubbed she tried to make as little noise as she could, with her face buried in her pillow. Every morning her pillow was wet.

  The worst thing of all was believing that she must have done something really wrong and that was why Mama had left. That would mean it had all been Jess’s fault even though she didn’t know what she was supposed to have done that was so terrible.

  Only one light shone. She saw it best with her eyes tight shut. She still cried but the light helped: the certainty that whatever she had done to make Mama go away, Mama would forgive her. Mama would come back for Jess and take her away so they would be together forever and ever. She still cried most nights, she was still alone, but somehow she never doubted that would happen, even weeks after that terrible night when she’d come home to find the cottage empty.

  Shannon had been kind to her then, the kindest she’d ever been, but she knew that in her heart Shannon didn’t care that Mama had gone away because she and Mama had always hated each other.

  The scullery had been Mama’s special place and now Jess spent a lot of time there. Mama had cooked their food on the little stove and made the sweet things Jess had loved. The smell of the sugar and the sweet cakes Mama used to bake were Jess’s home.

  Even with Mama gone the memory of those smells comforted her as though she were there still, hiding maybe in some cupboard or behind the door into the yard. Jess had a dream that one day that door would open and Mama would be standing there, her face one great smile. Jess would run into her arms and the arms would hold her tight and Jess would be alone no longer. It was a lovely dream for all that it made her cry, too, like so many things did. But Mama would come back for her one of these days: she was sure of it. In the meantime, she would learn to cook. She had always fancied the idea, even when Mama had still been there. She had said so once and Mama had promised to show her how. She’d never had the chance, because of having to go away the way she had, but Jes
s was determined to try the first opportunity she got. Maybe Shannon would teach her.

  It wasn’t easy to ask because Shannon was almost grown up, whereas Jess was still little, but eventually she summoned the courage to do it.

  Shannon said she didn’t know much but she had a friend whose mum liked cooking and she’d ask if that lady would be willing to show Jess a few simple recipes.

  The Hargreaves’ place was a block of land with a house on it about a mile outside Proserpine, and Mrs Hargreaves, fat and jolly and kind, said she would be happy to give Jess a few tips, if she cared to look in the next day after school. Jess was scared to go by herself so asked Shannon to go with her and Shannon said she would.

  The house was much smarter than theirs, with a big kitchen and shiny copper pots everywhere, but Mrs Hargreaves was kind and let her help make what she called fairy cakes, each with a tiny cherry on top. She let her take them home with her, too.

  ‘If you come again next week, same time, I’ll show you how to make gingerbread men,’ Mrs Hargreaves said.

  Helping to sift the flour and put the finished cakes into the oven was the first time for ever so long when Jess hadn’t felt sad about Mama.

  ‘I think you’ve a talent for this,’ Mrs Hargreaves said. ‘I fancy you’ll make a good little cook if you keep at it. But don’t try doing anything by yourself, not till you’re a bit older. Ovens can be dangerous for little girls.’

  Shannon

  Shannon had to give her job away. With Grace gone, Jess too young and Dad as helpless as men were when it came to running a household, she had no choice. Not that it cut any ice with Mike Mulligan. Mad as a cut snake was Mike Mulligan when Shannon gave him the news; he’d never mentioned it before but now it appeared that, without Shannon and her low-cut dress, the bar trade at the Clover Leaf would fall in a heap.

  ‘Pity you never told me till now,’ said Shannon. ‘I’d have asked for a raise.’

  Not so long ago she’d not have dared speak to him like that but serving behind the bar had put an edge on her tongue. It was a load of cobblers anyway; the Clover Leaf had been flourishing for years before Shannon worked there and would flourish equally well after she’d gone.

  Mike threatened to withhold some of her wages by way of payback, but there was the question of Shannon’s dad, getting on a bit but still more than capable of knocking a bloke’s block off, and her dad’s mates, many of whom would enjoy a stoush to enliven their day, so Mike had second thoughts.

  She gave him a week’s notice, which was more than the law required, told him see you later and was out of there. Very much without Mike Mulligan’s blessing.

  It was a battle, but they still had money coming in from Mrs Warburton and Dad had a few quid put aside that Shannon hadn’t known about, so they were able to survive. Precariously, but they did it. Knowing that thousands of others were in the same boat was a help, although she couldn’t have said why.

  Hal, awkwardly, offered to help but there was no way she’d accept charity, least of all from him.

  ‘But why? I’ve got some money. Please… I’d like to help you.’

  She wouldn’t have a bar of it. ‘We’ll manage,’ she said.

  Slowly the weeks and months passed, and the time came when Jess was able to give her a hand, which helped. From time to time she was able to get away for the day and go sailing. They were the times she looked forward to, most of all.

  MARCH–AUGUST 1936

  Shannon

  One day late in March she and Hal were out on the water. In Alice Springs it had been raining continuously for weeks; three days earlier, all women students at the Melbourne Conservatorium had been informed they must always wear stockings when attending classes, but in central north Queensland it was a day of glorious sunshine, gulls swooping and crying in their wake, and Shannon’s legs were bare.

  It was years since Shannon had first told herself she was in love with the man at the helm of the yacht that was carrying them away from the Shute Harbour anchorage and into the open waters of the Whitsunday Passage, but knowing it increasingly warmed her days and nights, with a kind of funny ache tucked in there somewhere too. Sitting on the deck she looked up at the blue and vibrant sky.

  ‘Where are you taking me?’

  ‘I thought we’d pay Charles Green island a visit.’

  From a distance the island looked like an isolated rock rising vertically out of deep water which, depending on the time of day and weather, could be emerald green or blue as the darkest sapphire, or in times of storm black as jet and curdled white with foam as the breakers pounded the cliffs colonised by gulls.

  Yet there was a lot more to the island than rock and screaming birds. There was an up-market resort on the western end of the island: luxury living for millionaires, complete with tennis courts and swimming pools. It was a place where the rich brought their wives or more commonly their mistresses to play at being Tarzan and Jane in what was the nearest they would ever come to true wilderness.

  ‘Are we planning to go ashore when we get there?’ Shannon asked.

  ‘Of course.’

  ‘I thought the island was private. What will the owners think if we just barge in?’

  ‘Who cares what they think? There’s a sheltered bay on the eastern side, well away from the resort. The beach there has got the whitest sand you ever saw and the water’s so clear you can see the shells on the bottom, twenty feet down. We’ll anchor there. There’s a cliff at the back of the beach, with a path leading up to a cave. There are some old Aboriginal paintings inside.’

  That sounded interesting.

  ‘Can we see them?’

  Hal shook his head. ‘We’d need a torch and I didn’t bring one. We can try another time. We’ll have a picnic on the beach instead. I got our cook, Mrs Dexter, to put up a hamper for us. And we might manage a swim, if you fancy the idea.’

  Shannon knew how to swim, sort of, and fancied the idea very much, but didn’t own a cozzie. It shamed her that she had so little when Hal had so much, so she said nothing. Besides, she had the idea that if she did say anything about it Hal might suggest skinny-dipping, and she wasn’t ready for anything as daring as that. Not in daylight, anyway.

  Then she found to get ashore she would have to swim anyway. ‘I didn’t bring any bathers,’ she said.

  He looked at her. ‘So?’

  ‘I can’t very well strip off, can I? What if someone comes?’

  ‘You’re wearing underclothes, aren’t you?’

  Grandma Boyle would have been shocked that a gentleman should even mention such things but Shannon was seventeen and less easily offended.

  ‘Of course I am.’ Although she’d heard girls, no older than she, claiming they didn’t, when they went out with a boy they fancied. Saves time later, one of them had said.

  Of course she could have been lying.

  ‘Then swim in those,’ Hal said. ‘They’ll soon dry in the sun.’

  The problem wasn’t how soon they would dry but what they would reveal when they were wet, but if she refused to go along with the idea he might think she was too prudish to bother with. So swim in her undies she did and, if he saw more of her than a gentleman should, at least he was gentleman enough to say nothing about it. Of course he might not have looked, being too busy floating Mrs Dexter’s hamper ashore on one of the yacht’s waterproof cushions, but somehow she doubted it.

  What with one thing and another it was a day for new experiences. They swam and ate the delicious food from the hamper – ham rolls and chicken salad and cold salmon and a luscious pork pie, with slices of fruitcake to round things off – and later went back aboard the cutter and went below into the little cabin with the twin bunk beds and later still headed for home. The breeze was quiet, the azure sea kindly, and Shannon sat on deck with her legs stretched out in front of her, while her mind ran over all the things that had happened to her that day. The outward journey to the island; the picnic on the beach while the hot sun dried the salt i
n circles around her bare legs; the precious time in the cutter’s white-painted cabin, with the sunlight angling through the portholes, when she discovered passion for the first time, and how it felt to be kissed by a man.

  Life, Shannon told herself, was a wonder and a miracle. She’d read that it was possible to die of happiness. She didn’t care about that – she was going to live, live forever – but her happiness was a bottomless well.

  Whenever she thought about it later she knew how amazing it was that they’d ever become mates when you remembered she was a year younger than Hal, with his father the richest man in the district and her family poorer than the poorest of church mice, yet there it was. She knew people were talking about them in the town but so what? She was in love with Hal Maitland and didn’t care who knew it.

  People always said that children could never really fall in love. Too young to know their own minds, they said. Well, they were wrong because she’d known hers, child or not, and still did. She remembered how, in the weeks after Mum’s funeral, Shannon had come across Hal’s name everywhere she looked. She read that he was a member of a sports team, a debating team, the winner of some prize at his school. Great things were expected, the paper said. In a strange way, reading about him helped console her for Mum’s death but now she was getting to know him better she discovered how much he’d hated all that artificial fame.

  ‘I’m only famous because of Dad. It has nothing to do with me. It wouldn’t even be reported if he didn’t own the paper.’

  Fame was a ball and chain around his neck. Around hers, too, because Shannon did not agree that his fame was unimportant. From her point of view Hal being famous was worse than his being rich. Wealth could be put down to luck but fame he’d earned himself. It made him even more inaccessible than he’d been before, yet after the voyage to Charles Green island all that had changed. Because now, she told herself, they had come to mean something to each other, even more than they had before. A lot more.