White Sands of Summer

by J. H. Fletcher

  ‘If only I could do the same,’ Shannon said, smiling sweetly. ‘And of course my father is dead, which rather rules him out, doesn’t it?’

  ‘A slap in the face for us,’ she said to Hal as they moved on.

  Miss Martin, the games mistress, said that Lydia was one of the school’s up-and-coming stars. ‘Or would be if she could learn to control her temper.’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘Sometimes she lets her will to win get the better of her.’

  ‘In what way?’

  ‘Rough play. We’ve had to send her off the netball court more than once. And there was a hockey match not long ago when she kicked a girl on the other side after she’d scored what turned out to be the winning goal. It’s good to be competitive,’ Miss Martin said. ‘But she has to learn to control herself better.’

  ‘I blame your father,’ Shannon said on their way home. ‘He’s spoilt her from the first.’

  ‘On the other hand, perhaps we don’t support her as much as we should,’ Hal said. ‘When was the last time either of us watched her play a school match?’

  ‘When was the last time either of us was able to spare the time?’

  Which was also true, even though knowing it didn’t help. Proper parenting and a hands-on career were a difficult mix. Maybe it was as well we decided against having a bigger family, Shannon thought. If it was too hard with one child, imagine what it would have been like with two or three or four.

  Well, at least they’d done their duty on this occasion. All in all, it had been an instructive and troubling day. Now it was time to get back to the day-by-day problems of their normal business lives.

  1956–57

  Jess

  The two years minimum she had agreed with Tan Yew Kim had, with Shannon’s blessing, now stretched to double that time.

  After the birth of their son Andrew three years before, Jess and Brandon had lived in a flat on the slopes of Singapore’s Mount Faber.

  The flat faced the water and at night, after the baby was asleep, they would sit on the outside veranda, drinking cold white wine and watching the boats passing up and down the channel that divided the mainland from the offshore island called Blakang Mati, a Malay name that in English meant After Death. The lights of the boats shone red and gold on the waters of the channel and the warm air and the wine combined to give Jess a pleasant feeling of somnolence before heading off to bed.

  She’d had to take leave when Andrew was born but had gone back to work three months later. She enjoyed her work but had begun to feel restless. Perhaps the time had come to move on. She hadn’t seen much of Madeleine since she’d moved with her husband to Kuala Lumpur. She’d been up to visit her when she’d given birth to her daughter one year to the day after her marriage, but since then Madeleine had been busy with the child and helping her husband with their business, and they had to some extent lost contact.

  Brandon was still at Raffles Hotel but his career had stalled: recently he’d missed out on a promotion he’d expected would come his way. He’d pretended not to be disappointed but was, and they both knew it.

  The phone rang. Jess picked up.

  Shannon’s voice. ‘Have I got a job for you!’

  Shannon talked; Jess listened.

  ‘What d’you think?’ Shannon said.

  ‘Sounds good. Any chance of putting it in writing?’

  Shannon laughed. ‘You don’t trust me?’

  ‘With my life: you know that. But something in writing will make it easier for Brandon and I to talk it over properly.’

  ‘I’ll put something in the post to you tonight.’

  The letter came nine days later. That night she and Brandon sat on the veranda in the cicada-whistling darkness, the bottle of wine wet with condensation between them as they mulled over Shannon’s proposal.

  ‘Starting a new restaurant from the beginning. Being in charge of my own restaurant… It would be quite a challenge.’

  ‘It certainly would be for you.’

  She looked at him. ‘Meaning?’

  ‘You’re a Chinese chef. How d’you think that’ll go down on the Gold Coast?’

  ‘It’ll give me the chance to educate them. Besides, I can do French cooking, too. And I won’t be the only chef; there’ll be others.’

  ‘I like it here,’ Brandon said.

  ‘So do I. But there are times when I feel I’m living in a dream world.’

  ‘Nothing wrong with dreaming.’

  ‘Until you have to wake up.’

  ‘Why should we ever need to do that?’

  ‘Andrew will have to be educated. That’ll mean taking him back to Australia, won’t it?’

  ‘There’s my work at the hotel.’

  ‘Be honest with me. Do you think they’ll ever give you the top spot?’

  They both knew the answer but it was important he should say so. They watched a freighter, deck lights yellow in the darkness, as it passed silently down the channel.

  ‘Probably not,’ he said.

  ‘Then what’s to stop us? It’s a brilliant offer.’

  ‘From your sister.’

  ‘Who cares who it’s from?’

  ‘It makes me feel I’m part of the baggage. An afterthought.’

  ‘Nonsense!’

  ‘I shall miss this,’ Brandon said.

  ‘That’s life, isn’t it? We have to move on. And the chance like this, with you at the hotel and me running the restaurant… I think we can make something special out of that, don’t you?’

  ‘I suppose we can give it a shot. If you’re that keen.’

  There was resentment in his voice but she knew he wouldn’t fight her about it. She’d entrusted her heart to him and had never regretted it, but in the years she’d known him she’d found that, while he was quick to complain, fighting wasn’t Brandon’s style.

  They finished the wine and went indoors. With as little fuss as the freighter passing silently in the night, the decision had been made.

  They flew back to Australia two months later.

  Mr Tan took them out to dinner before they left. ‘We are very happy with the work you have done for us. You will always be welcome if you decide to rejoin us at any time.’

  ‘It has been an honour. But I don’t see it happening, do you?’

  ‘There is a Chinese saying,’ Mr Tan said. ‘Yŏu yuán qiān lái xiāng huí. Roughly translated, it means fate reunites people from far apart. Who knows what the future holds?’

  When they arrived at the Gold Coast they put down a deposit on a waterfront bungalow near the hotel and got to work.

  ‘Starting a new restaurant from the beginning,’ Jess said. ‘Something to get my teeth into.’

  While Brandon started as assistant to Noah Fürstli, the hotel’s Swiss manager, who Aaron Davies told Shannon came with the highest recommendations. Highest recommendations or not, Brandon wasn’t pleased.

  ‘I understood I’d be getting the top job,’ he said. ‘With my experience…’

  Shannon had never promised that but Brandon sulked all the same. ‘It wasn’t what I was expecting.’

  ‘Do your best, OK?’ Jess said. ‘This company’s going places.’

  ‘You don’t know that.’

  ‘I know my sister. There’ll be other opportunities.’

  That worried Jess. Brandon always wanted the top job but was too entitled, and easily discouraged; he thought advancement was his by right and lacked the stamina to stay focused on earning it. Not that she had the time to think too much about that; her brain was on fire with ideas for the new restaurant.

  ‘It needs to be on two levels,’ she said. ‘I’m all in favour of going for an up-market facility but let’s face it, not everyone will want to pay up-market prices. I think we must also cater for the people with smaller wallets.’

  ‘Cover both ends of the market?’ Aaron said. ‘I like it.’

  It made sense; the way things were shaping up, the Gold Coast was attracting plenty
of people with more modest expectations and more modest budgets.

  ‘I like the way your sister thinks,’ Aaron told Shannon. ‘She’s got her head screwed on, that one.’

  ‘And her husband?’

  ‘We’ll see,’ Aaron said.

  Hmm…

  It took a mountain of work but somehow, with a supreme effort and weeks of eighteen-hour days, Jess got both sections of the restaurant ready in time for the holiday season: table service and white cloths for the top grade, Formica and self-service for the less expensive option. In each the food was top quality for the prices charged; that Jess had insisted on.

  ‘I’m sorry I’ve not seen as much of you as I’d have liked,’ she told Andrew. ‘I promise it’ll be better after the holiday season. OK?’

  The hotel was ready, too, with Brandon doing what he had to do but not much more.

  ‘Please…’ Jess said.

  ‘It’s hard to give your best when you’ve been cheated,’ Brandon said.

  Nobody had cheated him and Jess was sick of his endless moaning. ‘For heaven’s sake…’

  ‘For heaven’s sake what?’ Brandon’s eyes were hot. She saw he was looking for a fight but she had neither the time nor inclination to oblige him. Either he would pull his weight or he wouldn’t. And the fact was that, difficult man though he was, she was still in love with him, which made it easy for her to ignore his failings. His attitude notwithstanding, in a very real sense, he was her life.

  At least the restaurants were a success. People had to book ten days ahead if they wanted tablecloth service and two magazines had described it as the top dining venue on the Gold Coast, while the economy section was drawing in holidaymakers like there was no tomorrow, but September brought a change.

  SEPTEMBER 1957

  Jess

  They always said the wife was the last to know; perhaps that was why Jess was so shocked when one evening towards the end of the month Brandon said he was moving on.

  At first she thought he meant he was going to look for another job. That didn’t surprise her; from hints Shannon had dropped from time to time, she knew that Brandon and Noah Fürstli hadn’t been getting on too well, but Noah was a demanding man and Brandon had never taken kindly to being bossed about. There were other beachfront hotels now and she assumed he was hoping to get a job with one of them.

  ‘Don’t do anything drastic until you’ve found another place,’ she said.

  Then came the shock.

  ‘I’m not changing my job,’ Brandon said. ‘I’m changing my life.’

  Her brain couldn’t take it in. ‘What are you talking about?’

  ‘It’s not just the job I’m leaving. It’s you.’

  ‘I don’t understand.’

  A lie: she understood, all right, but couldn’t accept it. For the moment couldn’t accept it. She found she was breathing fast, so fast. The shock left her cold, then hot, then cold again. Cold like ice.

  I will not cry.

  ‘I’ve had it,’ he said. Now the words were out he could be savage. ‘Had it with the job. Had it with the whole set-up. Had it with you.’

  Nothing could be clearer than that. Yet still her brain battled to absorb what he was saying. ‘Why?’

  Sinking in the bog, she was fighting to reach solid ground.

  He shook his head and shrugged. ‘That’s how it is.’

  He was saying that why didn’t matter. That was the way it was and there was nothing else to be said.

  Is there someone else? Her pride did not let her ask. Inside she was shaking but her face – she could feel it – was stone.

  For days the outside world not have known anything was wrong. At home it was a surreal business, sharing a bathroom with a man who’d told her he’d had it with her. They were husband and wife, living separately together.

  Hurt, anger, bitterness beat their drums inside her head.

  One evening she came home to an empty house. Panic surged before she read his note. Andrew with their neighbour but Brandon… Brandon was gone.

  She went and collected her son. ‘It’s just us, now,’ she told him as she took him home. The two of them, and a life.

  Now others were aware she knew, they could talk. Comments flocked like scavenging crows.

  Brandon had been at best an indifferent worker. It wasn’t just the manager who’d had a problem with him, he hadn’t got on with the other staff, either. The exception had been a trainee, little more than a girl, quite a looker if you went for that sort of thing, who’d handed in her notice a month before.

  Was there a link? Of course there was a link, but where they’d gone no one had a clue. It was as though her mother had returned from the past only to walk away again.

  It took a huge effort for Jess to present a calm face to the world but she managed it. Inside was a different story; inside she was broken to bits. Traditionally people described hell as a fiery inferno. Jess had never believed that, nor did she now. There was no need because she knew exactly what hell was: a burning coal you carried in your breast, a fire consuming the heart and giving you no rest.

  For nights on end she couldn’t sleep, her eyes gritty with weariness, while the same thought beat like a hammer in her brain. Twice she had trusted, giving her heart unconditionally to another person. To Grace and then to Brandon. Beloved mother; husband, lover, friend. Now Brandon, like Grace, had trampled her heart beneath his boots.

  Thank God for Shannon. There was no chance of her not knowing, of course, nor did Jess want to keep her in the dark. Quite the opposite, but telling anyone, even a well-loved sister, that your husband had walked out on you was not an easy thing to do. In the event Shannon came to her.

  ‘Is it true? Has Brandon really left?’

  ‘I guess he has.’

  ‘You poor thing! I can’t believe it. What a bastard! How could he do such a thing?’

  ‘Very easily, apparently.’

  But trying to make light of it didn’t work. Nothing worked.

  ‘Come here,’ Shannon said.

  She put her arms around Jess’s now trembling body and hugged her tight. That did it. Before, her eyes had been wet; now tears were everywhere.

  They hugged and wept and were silent together.

  Twice, she thought. I have been betrayed twice.

  Cheat me once, shame on you; cheat me twice, shame on me. Enough. She would not allow it to happen a third time.

  ‘How horrible for you! I can’t believe it.’

  Sniffle.

  ‘Take him to the cleaners, I was you.’

  ‘What’s the point? He hasn’t got a bean.’

  Besides, it wasn’t her style. Jess’s solution? To get on with her work, look after Andrew and try to make a success of what remained of her life.

  1962

  Lydia

  Until she was fifteen Lydia had despised boys. They were citizens of a foreign country; much of the time they spoke in ways she didn’t understand and their rituals and behaviour were incomprehensible to her. She thought them stupid and crude, with nothing to recommend them, but around the time of her fifteenth birthday her mind began to change. Most of the boys she knew were still stupid and crude, but it no longer mattered so much. Citizens of a foreign country they would likely remain, but that, to an adventurous spirit, represented challenge; foreign countries were there to be explored.

  She said nothing; as far as she knew she behaved exactly as she always had, yet something, she did not know what, had certainly changed, because now boys were looking at her in a way they never had before.

  At first she was embarrassed but, as she got used to the feeling, she found she rather liked it. Instinct told her to do nothing, to await developments, so that was what she did and a month after her birthday instinct proved right when Mark Hobbs, one of the boys in her class, asked if she’d like to go for a drive with him after school.

  Her heart jumped but she made sure her face showed nothing. She kept him waiting, as though thinking about what
he’d said, but in reality to give herself time to look him over. She’d seen him for years but had never really looked at him before. He wasn’t much, but better than many. She had an idea his dad worked on the railways.

  ‘You don’t have a car,’ she said.

  ‘My brother does. We can use that. He won’t mind.’

  ‘You don’t have a licence.’

  ‘Who’s to know?’ He smiled at her. He was very confident and at that moment she didn’t like him at all. ‘You coming for a drive, then?’

  ‘No, I’m doing something else.’

  ‘Like what?’

  ‘Like mind-your-own-business business.’

  He wasn’t pleased, but she hadn’t expected him to be pleased.

  ‘Another time, maybe?’

  ‘You can always ask.’

  ‘Is that a promise?’

  She found she was enjoying what she now realised was a game. She smiled at him while instinct made her moisten her upper lip with the tip of her tongue. ‘I promise I’ll say yes or no.’

  ‘Depending on?’

  ‘Depending on how I feel at the time.’

  She danced a little as she walked down the road. She was sure he’d ask her again; she thought it might be fun to string him along for a while; on the other hand it might be more exciting to say yes and see what came of it. Nothing serious; she was certain about that. The son of a railway worker? Give me a break!

  Instead of going straight home she thought she might drop in and see Grandpa Maitland. It would please him and it made sense to keep in with him; he might leave her something in his will. With any luck he’d have his housekeeper serve them tea on the terrace with its views over the lily pond; that always made her feel good. And afterwards, fingers crossed, he’d get his chauffeur to drive her home in the Bentley.

  Three weeks later she let Mark Hobbs talk her into going for a drive with him in his brother’s car.

  They drove down the rutted dirt road to the beach called Hideaway Bay. There was nothing there but the sea and the beach, with gum trees everywhere and even the odd kangaroo bounding silently through the scrub.

  Lydia waited, staring through the trees at the expanse of blue sea studded with islands. She was unsure what would happen next or how she was supposed to react when it did.