White Sands of Summer

by J. H. Fletcher

  The first weekend in April there was an Easter dinner dance at the Airlie Beach Yacht Club and Hal wanted her to go with him. She was nervous about it, knowing nothing about the etiquette of what she was sure would be a grand occasion, nor did she own a dress that would be right for such a posh do, so she told him she’d give it a miss.

  He was horrified. ‘Why would you do that?’

  ‘I’d be so out of place,’ she said. ‘I don’t fancy it.’

  The trouble was she did fancy it, and certainly didn’t want him going with someone else. ‘Let me think about it,’ she said.

  After scratching her head for a while, she went to see Mrs Hargreaves, the farmer’s wife who’d introduced Jess to cooking and who, she’d heard on the grapevine, had worked for a dressmaker in Mackay before she’d married.

  ‘I wonder if you can help me…’

  Mrs Hargreaves looked like a tub of lard but had a generous spirit and romantic soul, and when she heard what Shannon wanted she was delighted. ‘I’ve got some material somewhere that’ll be just right for you.’

  Stitching and measuring furiously, she ended up producing a full-length emerald-coloured gown in a material that looked like silk but probably wasn’t, with a high neck, tight waist and bare back.

  Shannon wasn’t sure about the bare back. ‘I’ll feel naked,’ she said.

  ‘It’s the latest fashion,’ Mrs Hargreaves said.

  Shannon stared at her reflection in the mirror. ‘I can’t hardly believe it’s me wearing it.’

  It was a reckless, lovely feeling, as though destiny were running away with her. She was enjoying every minute of it yet couldn’t help feeling uneasy, too. Tickets for the annual dinner dance at a swank place like the Airlie Beach Yacht Club would be sure to cost a packet and she was beginning to wonder what Hal might be hoping to get in return. At the same time, she had no plans to ditch the lovely dress.

  Let him hope what he likes, she told herself. Doesn’t mean I have to give it to him, does it?

  She phoned him on Mrs Hargreaves’s phone. ‘If you still want to take me…’

  She rang off and stared at Mrs Hargreaves with shining eyes. ‘It’s on,’ she said.

  It certainly was a grand affair, with the men wearing black ties and more backs than Shannon’s bared to the breeze off the sea. Pink dresses and blue, green and crimson, swirled and sauntered under the shimmering lanterns that swung suspended from the lowest branches of the trees.

  Many young bodies showed their pale backs to the moon; pale faces, too, not all of them prepared to welcome an intruder who had somehow latched on to the highly eligible Hal, only son of the rich Sir Stoddart Maitland. Naked backs could turn from an unwanted stranger as emphatically as those concealed beneath dresses. And mouths pouted while a four-piece band tootled and scraped in the background.

  ‘Do you dance?’ Hal asked Shannon when they had found their table on the edge of the dance floor.

  ‘No,’ Shannon said.

  ‘Would you like to try?’

  She was afraid of the scornful eyes of the young women, who would be certain to pick her to pieces whatever she did. Then steel entered Shannon Harcourt. If these women were going to criticise her anyway, what did she have to lose? She and no one else was with Hal; he had invited her and not them. If they wanted to despise her because of it, let them get on with it. Let them see how little she cared what they thought.

  ‘If you don’t mind teaching me.’

  And I will make an exhibition of myself, laughing so much at my mistakes that it will shut them all up.

  So Shannon fell over her feet, twice deliberately and once by accident, and might have ended on the floor had Hal not prevented it. While Shannon laughed heartily.

  ‘What do they call this dance?’

  ‘The foxtrot.’

  ‘If I was a fox I might manage it a bit better.’

  ‘There’s a dance called the jitterbug,’ Hal said.

  Shannon wasn’t too sure about the jitterbug. ‘I’m not a bug, either. I’d better see what it looks like before I risk it.’

  Hal took her to meet the commodore and his wife.

  ‘Am I supposed to curtsy?’

  ‘I wouldn’t say so.’

  ‘Just as well,’ Shannon said. ‘I wouldn’t know how.’

  After supper a flat-chested girl came over to their table and would have made much of Hal had he not evaded her by introducing her to Shannon.

  ‘And how did the two of you meet?’ Making it clear she was amazed as well as amused by the fact.

  ‘Pinching watermelons,’ Shannon said.

  ‘Someone was telling me you work behind the bar in a public house. What qualifications do you need for a job like that?’

  ‘You need tits,’ Shannon said. ‘The blokes like to look down the front of your dress and they get really upset if there’s nothing for them to look at.’

  ‘How interesting,’ the tall girl said.

  She returned to her own table while Hal did his best not to laugh.

  Later he drove her home. He kissed her and she kissed him back and wished the moment would last forever.

  They never went back to Charles Green, because Shannon talked Hal out of it whenever he suggested going there. The island was special to her, their time there so precious she wanted to preserve the memory and not devalue it by too many casual visits.

  Shannon valued all the things she had experienced during that trip. Even now she could taste the unique flavour of the ham rolls and fruit cake; remembered, too, the softness of the bunk upon which she had lain in the white-painted cabin, with the sunlight slanting in diagonal pillars of golden light through what Hal had told her were called the portholes.

  Special things had happened to her there and other things had almost happened but in the end had not. There were days when she was sorry about what she’d missed but at other times she was relieved: too many complications could flow from letting things get out of control, as several of her friends had found to their cost, and she had discovered it was a lot harder than she’d expected to keep things under control.

  She had the vague notion that when it happened, as she was sure it would some time, and as long as it was with Hal, it would be good if Charles Green were the place. She thought she would like to keep Charles Green island for the moment that her instinct told her would be neither casual nor fleeting but an episode of the greatest importance to her and her future. Charles Green, under the watchful eyes of the old gods and of those people, long gone from that place, whose memorial Hal had told her was painted in undiminished brilliance upon the walls of the cave set high in the cliff face: that would be the place.

  She never said any of this to Hal; it would be too dangerous to reveal her inner feelings about what might or might not be their future. Instead they visited other islands and on one occasion the Barrier Reef.

  That was the day he gave her the news.

  ‘Did I tell you I’ll be going to Oxford University in the spring?’ he said.

  She wasn’t so much shocked as perplexed. ‘The one in England?’

  The distance was so vast; it was hard to believe in anywhere so far away, although Grace had mentioned an uncle, who she said had died in France during the war.

  ‘Of course the one in England,’ Hal laughed.

  ‘Why would you want to go there?’

  ‘Family tradition. My father went so he wants me to go, too.’

  ‘How long will you be there?’ Thinking a month, or maybe two. She could handle two months, if she must.

  ‘Three years,’ Hal said casually, as though it were a fortnight.

  That jolted her. ‘Three years? You’re saying I won’t be seeing you for three years?’

  Suddenly, between one moment and the next, the emerald dress Mrs Hargreaves had made for her had become a shoddy thing, something to be ground into the dust. There would be beautiful women in England, rich women well-connected, and Shannon saw that the time at university in farawa
y England that he had dismissed so lightly was likely to prove a catastrophe that would destroy her and all the dreams she had so foolishly allowed to take root. Like the dress, they too would be ground into the dust. Because Hal’s father said it must be so.

  Rebellion stirred in Shannon Harcourt that night, after she had said goodbye to Hal Maitland and the hopes she now pretended she had never had. She went into the cottage, first making sure he saw her waving to him as he drove away. She shut the door and locked it, although that was something most people did not do in the country where thieves were rare. Shannon turned the key, not to protect herself from burglars, but from thoughts of loss that might otherwise have tormented her. Three years, she thought. A lifetime. Yet she would fight, because she was a fighter and Hal worth fighting for.

  We have a date, she thought. He doesn’t know it yet but we have a date on Charles Green island when he comes back to me from that university on the far side of the earth. And on that island, I will lay claim to him and make him mine.

  They remained closer than ever through all the autumn and frosty winter days, which seemed to Shannon to speed on wings. And suddenly it was the dead end of July and Hal was packing for the long sea voyage.

  The night before he left he came to see her.

  ‘Write to me,’ she said.

  ‘Of course I will. And I want you to do something for me. I’d like you to take Dragon out now and then.’

  Dragon was Hal’s yacht.

  ‘You want me to sail her out of the harbour?’ Shannon wasn’t sure she liked the sound of that. ‘What if I do something stupid and wreck her? You’ve plenty of friends more experienced than me.’

  ‘I would trust her more to you than anyone else I know.’

  ‘Why do it at all?’

  ‘Wooden hulls can crack when they dry out. And if she just lies to her mooring and never moves, she’ll get so much weed on her she’ll hardly sail at all. So won’t you do it for me? Please?’

  Shannon watched the little-boy act and thought it gave her some power she would not otherwise have had. ‘On one condition,’ she said.

  She reached up and kissed him on the nose in case he might be offended by the thought of her laying down conditions.

  ‘Which is?’

  ‘That you write to me regularly. Let me know what’s going on.’

  ‘I already said –’

  ‘Promise me?’ It wouldn’t help if he really fell for someone over there but at least it would keep them in touch. Otherwise she was afraid he might get out of the habit of thinking about her at all.

  He laughed and tousled her hair. ‘Promise.’

  She tried to think of all the things that had happened in the world in the previous three years. She didn’t know much but had read about some bloke called Hitler who the papers said was turning Germany into a massive army. As if they hadn’t had enough of that the last time. But it seemed Hitler had not, and as far as she knew no one was doing anything to stop him. Then the papers said the Japanese army had taken over huge chunks of China and was doing dreadful things to the Chinese people. She didn’t understand any of it but it all sounded terribly dangerous and when she thought how in three years anything at all might happen, and that she might never see Hal again, she could have wept from fear and despair.

  She did not. She made a strong resolution to be brave. She would not permit herself to cry. She told herself that love conquered all. She told herself that three years were not such a long time and would soon pass. She told herself these things and believed neither of them. She cried, too, despite her efforts, but only inside where no one could see.

  He had suggested taking her out to dinner but she had said no. She had wanted to have him to herself on this last evening and so she had, but now the time had come for him to leave.

  There was a clop of hooves and the rumble of wheels as a farm truck went down the road past the cottage.

  ‘I have to go,’ Hal said, without moving.

  ‘Yes,’ Shannon said.

  He took her hands, her cold hands, and drew her to him and kissed her for a long time.

  ‘Goodbye,’ he said.

  ‘Goodbye.’ She squeezed a smile from somewhere. It wasn’t much of a smile but would have to do for the moment. ‘Safe journey.’

  She listened to the sound of the engine as he drove away. Only when it had dwindled to silence and she knew she was truly alone did she allow the tears to come.

  1936–39

  Shannon

  Times had been hard as far back as Shannon could remember, but now they seemed to get harder every month.

  She was still doing Mrs Warburton’s ironing and they still had Dad’s wages but the fact was their income wasn’t enough to keep the tiger from the gates, as Mrs Girdle would have put it. There was no hope of Dad getting a raise, either; he’d already been passed over twice for a foreman’s position. The fact was he was getting a bit long in the tooth for the job he was doing, but with no other options available he had to keep battling on.

  There was no question of his going to the pub any more; even food was becoming a problem. As the Depression tightened, stray lambs had become increasingly hard to find and the amount Shannon was able to put on their plates of an evening grew less and less.

  Tragedy struck when out of the blue Mrs Warburton announced she wouldn’t be needing Shannon’s services any more.

  ‘Mr Warburton has been promoted,’ she said. ‘We shall be moving to Rockhampton next month.’

  No arguing with that. And with Jess growing and eating the way she was it was obvious that something would have to be done.

  Shannon missed Hal more than ever. She needed his arms to comfort her, and there were dreary days when she started wondering whether she would ever feel them again.

  It was true he’d kept in touch, brief letters arriving every month or two. She would have liked to hear from him more often but told herself to be thankful for what she had. He never had much to say about his studies but told her he’d played cricket for his college and had joined the university debating union. He hoped she was well but never told her he loved her. She would have liked him to say that but had a hunch it wasn’t something men did. He asked her if she was looking after his boat. There were times when she missed him so much it was a physical pain.

  One day it got so bad she did the only thing she could to surround herself with the sense of his presence. She collected the sails from the sail loft, took the dinghy and oars from the shed where they were stored and went aboard Dragon.

  The idea of sailing her alone scared her, so she did nothing but tidy up the mess the gulls had left on the deck. She went below and opened the brass portholes to let the fresh air blow through. She polished the tarnished metal until it shone, then made herself a cup of tea on the Primus stove and drank it as she remembered the fine times she and Hal had shared in this cabin.

  She sat without moving for a while, then closed the portholes again and screwed them fast. She left the sail bag in the forepeak, locked up and went ashore.

  Three days later she came back again. This time she hoisted sail, cast off from the mooring and sailed slowly and carefully around the harbour, half-scared and half-excited by her daring. Picking up the mooring again was the tricky part but she remembered how Hal had taught her to sail slowly past the buoy, turn up into the wind so Dragon lost way and use the boathook to pick it up and bring it inboard.

  It took her three goes but she felt like a million pounds when she’d done it.

  She wrote to Hal that evening, telling him of her triumph and how next time she planned to leave the harbour altogether and sail a little way offshore.

  It’s amazing how close you seem to me when I am aboard, as though your hand is guiding mine on the tiller.

  Shannon had said she’d take Dragon to sea because now she’d said it she would have to do it. He would expect her to let him know how things had gone and she wasn’t willing to lie to him about it, or about anything. Her feeling
s for him took all the available space; there was no room for lies.

  She didn’t say anything to Dad about it because she thought he might tell her not to, so she waited until he’d gone to work before making her move. She walked Jess to school, shovelled her through the gate and took off just in time to catch the bus to Shute.

  It was a nice day with a breeze but not too much of it: ideal weather for her first single-handed trip into the open waters of the Whitsunday Passage.

  Her heart felt funny, her mouth tasted funny as she hoisted sail but she would not listen to the inner voice telling her not to be a fool. She cast off, took firm hold of the tiller and headed away from the shelter of the land.

  Spray flew back as she encountered the first seas outside the harbour and she could taste salt on her lips. Dragon was well heeled but making good progress, while the strengthening wind sang in the rigging and the foam-curdled waves rang hissing along the hull.

  From the horizon ahead, lightning flickered as a bank of black cloud spread steadily across the sky.

  Common sense told her she should turn back. A storm was coming; it would probably bring heavy seas and she had no experience of dealing with such conditions, yet stubbornness shouted down common sense. If she accepted the challenge of the storm, she told herself, her problems would vanish. Hal would come home; he would still love her; their perpetual lack of money would miraculously disappear; and all would be for the best in the best of all possible worlds, as one of the characters had said in a novel Mrs Girdle had lent her a long time ago.

  Now there was sleet in the wind, stinging her face and making it hard to see. She knew she should reduce sail but wasn’t sure she could manage it without losing control of the boat, so for the time being carried on. Lightning flashed; the roar of the thunder buffeted her; the seas were running green along the deck.

  She could taste panic, sour in her throat.

  It was madness to go on. Was she a fool? No, she was not a fool. Turn back, while it was still possible.

  Very well. She brought the mainsheet as tight as she could. Heart in her mouth, she pushed the tiller out as far as it would go. Dragon staggered as she came about; a cresting wave forced the prow round; the boom crashed across as the wind took it. Crashed but held. Shannon eased the main. They were round. The cutter surged through the cresting waves, heading back towards the harbour. Shannon could feel her heart slamming against her ribs. She reached shelter, the sudden easing of tension leaving her weak, body trembling.