Summer

by Michelle Zoetemeyer

  ***

  All of Peter's enthusiasm returned the moment he laid eyes on his new car. Its metal skin shone and sparkled just like the advertisement, thereby confirming Peter's choice of Warwick Yellow over the Picardy Red. Not that he had anything against the red; he just felt that the yellow more effectively set off the black stripes. Well, at least that’s what he’d said to the car salesman at the time of ordering. Only Maggie knew the real reason for his choice of colour, and that was that Bruce McPhee and Barry Mulholland had driven the same car to victory in the Hardie-Ferodo 500 at Bathurst only months before.

  Peter listened politely while the salesman with the slick hair and slicker tongue droned on about the car’s many features, “You won’t be short of power in this, mate,” he said with genuine admiration, “she’s capable of over one hundred miles an hour in fourth gear, and with that all-synchro, heavy duty gear box, she’ll run like a dream…” the salesman went on effortlessly.

  The badge pinned to his shirt pocket advised that his name was Bruce. Peter should have been impressed with Bruce’s limitless knowledge, but instead he agreed absent-mindedly, all the while wishing that he would shut up and leave him to admire his new car in peace. After all, he’d already purchased the car, hadn’t he? The last thing he needed to hear about was the low restriction dual exhaust system with reverse flow resonators and twin tail pipes with chrome plated outlets.

  “Um, thanks for that, mate,” Peter interrupted the moment Bruce took a breath, “I better be going.” The way Bruce possessively held on to the keys irked Peter and he held out his hand to indicate that it was time to hand them over. “I think I can take it from here, thanks Bruce,” Peter said in an icy tone. Bruce looked at Peter as though he was about to run off with his best friend, but reluctantly extended his hand and dangled the keys in front of him. Peter gave him a dirty look and snatched the keys from his hand. He had very little time for smooth-talking salesmen at the best of times and this was especially the case after the deal had been closed.

  Bruce handed Peter the relevant paper work and instructed him on the best way to get out of the crowded car yard. Peter gave him a final nod and hopped in his new car. The first thing that hit him was the smell. He loved the smell of new cars, but this one more so than any other he had owned. This was his first V8 and he couldn’t wait to get it out of Bruce’s clutches and onto the open road.

  Roger had already left with Peter’s Premier and was on his way back to Peter's place, which meant that Peter had to ignore his urge to cruise around for hours and drive straight home instead where both Roger and Mary were waiting for him.

  ***

  Mary had not gotten out at the car yard like Roger had done, so she had not seen Peter's new car yet. “Wow,” she exclaimed through his open window as he pulled up, “it’s a beauty.” Peter knew that she was just being polite. Like most women, Mary had very little interest in cars, but he was grateful for her nice words anyway.

  Mary obviously sensed something was not right between him and Maggie, because she never once asked him about Maggie, as she normally would have done. Roger; however, was another kettle of fish. “Where’s your better half mate?” he asked tactlessly.

  Peter informed Roger that Maggie had gone to the cottage on Saturday without him. “What, you pair have a row or something, mate?” he continued.

  “Roger!” Mary chided him, “why can’t you mind your own business?”

  “Jeez, can’t a man take an interest in his own brother’s affairs.”

  Mary flashed Peter a smile before answering, “Of course you can, but there’s no need to carry on like an old washerwoman. Peter already told you that he had to stay in Sydney to pick up his new car.”

  Peter hadn’t told him any such thing, but Roger was too thick to question what Mary had said, so he let the matter drop. Peter gave Mary an appreciative look before offering them both a cold drink and putting an end to the topic for good. Once inside, he waited for what he felt was a respectable time, before getting up from the table. “Well, thanks again, mate,” he said, hoping Roger would take the hint and leave. “You too Mary; thanks for giving me a hand today.”

  Roger didn’t move from his seat. Thankfully though, Mary did. “Think nothing of it,” she said to Peter, then to Roger, “Come on love, we better be going.”

  “We just got here,” he complained.

  Mary looked at Peter apologetically, “Yeah, well I’ve got more work than I can poke a stick at, so we need to get a move on. Otherwise you’ll be helping me hang washing on the line before you go to work this afternoon.”

  The threat of work was sufficient to get him moving.” Bloody hell,” he said to Peter. “Look what a man’s gotta put up with. Day in, day out, I work hard to put food on the table, and then I cop this from the missus. I tell ya, it’s this sort of thing that drives a man to drink.”

  Peter laughed at his brother good-naturedly. He waved to them from the front door before going into the bedroom to pack his things.

  ***

  With only eight days to go until Christmas, Maggie expected the shops to be more crowded than they were. She wasn’t complaining, however; it suited her just fine as it was. She looked at the tattered list in her hand for the hundredth time, and crossed Michelle’s name of the list. She was certain that Michelle would love the dressing table set she had bought her. Made from Bohemian crystal, the set contained two vases, a trinket bowl with lid, a ring stand, and a matching tray large enough to accommodate all of the items. Maggie had spent more on Michelle’s gift than she had anticipated, but she justified the expense by telling herself that it would help compensate for not spending Christmas with her daughter.

  For Stephen, Maggie bought clothes. At eighteen, he seemed to need more clothes than ever. She had spent ages carefully selecting items, knowing that the slightest error of judgement on her behalf would render the clothes unwearable. Luckily for her, the shop assistant was a young man not much older than Stephen. He had suggested items that he assured her would please any fashion conscious young man. In the end she had settled on a pair of Amco denim jeans, a groovy looking corduroy jacket, one of those paisley shirts that seemed to be all the craze at the moment, and some underwear.

  Before continuing her shopping, Maggie decided to treat herself to some lunch. She carted the bags and boxes to the car and placed them in the boot. That way she wouldn’t have to lug about Michelle’s weighty gift as well as the heavy books she got for Bea and Mary and the Pyrex bowls she purchased for Faye.

  Maggie sat in the milk bar and ate her fish and chips straight from the newspaper. She liked her chips best that way, especially if she kept them wrapped up and ate them from a hole in the top. Today; however, she opened the paper all the way, so that she could squirt tomato sauce onto the corner of the paper. While she was in the bookshop, she had come across a pack of Tarot cards, which she absolutely had to have. Their detailed pictures and symbology intrigued her to no end and she couldn’t wait to get them out and have a closer look at them. She wondered what Peter would think when he found out that she had bought her own deck of cards and a book. She had paid a lady at the markets once do a reading for her and had wanted to learn more about the Tarot ever since. Unfortunately, like so many things in her life, she was always too busy with one thing or another to fully nurture her interests.

  She wiped her hands on the paper napkin and reached into her large shoulder bag for the box of cards. She planned to leave the book until she got home. For now, she was happy to simply flick through the cards and study the images.

  “It’s Maggie, isn’t it?” A man’s voice asked hesitantly.

  Maggie looked up to see a familiar face standing in front of her, looking down with a fair degree of uncertainty. She knew that she had met this person before, but she couldn’t for the life of her remember where.

  “I thought it was you,” the man said, looking more sure of himself after having seen her face close up, “it’s me, Michael
Drury. Remember; we went to teacher’s college together.”

  The look of confused recognition on Maggie’s face changed to one of surprise as she remembered Mike from all those years ago. “Of course,” she stood up to shake his hand, “I thought you looked familiar, I just couldn’t place you at first.”

  They exchanged small talk before Maggie remembered her manners and invited him to sit down. He accepted her offer and took the seat opposite her in the booth. Maggie studied his face discreetly as he told her about his life. Now that she knew who he was, she could easily picture him as he had been sixteen years ago.

  To her embarrassment, Maggie realised that she was comparing him to Peter. There was no doubt that Mike was still handsome. His dimples made him look much younger than his thirty-five years. Yet, even though he was still nice and trim and had a full head of hair, she thought that Peter was the more attractive of the two. For some reason, that fact annoyed her. Since finding out about Peter's affair, she’d had plenty of opportunity – and reason – to contemplate a life without him. Whenever she had attempted to do so, she always got stuck on the bit about meeting someone else and getting on with her life. She doubted that she would ever find another person that she wanted to share her life with. The fact that she found Mike less attractive than Peter, despite him having the kind of looks most people would have favoured, went a long way to confirming her doubts.

  “And what about you?” he asked, “what have you been doing all this time?”

  Maggie gave him a brief overview of the past sixteen years starting with her graduation and ending with her visit to the cottage. Of course, she left out the sordid details of the past three days and simply explained that she and her family had spent Christmas at Martinsville every year since her mother had left her the cottage.

  “So, how old are your children?” Mike asked.

  When she gave him Stephen and Michelle’s ages, he looked confused. “They’re Peter's kids,” she explained further. A look of understanding crossed his face; he asked no further questions about the children.

  Maggie found Mike’s company pleasant. He was clearly an intelligent person with a good sense of humour. After spending three days alone with her misery, his sudden appearance was a refreshing change.

  Before too long, the conversation became less formal and more relaxed and she even laughed at his comments from time to time. She tried to sound sincere when she asked him how it was that a man like him was not married. She hoped she wasn’t being too forward, but she thought that someone like Mike would have had a long list of ladies eager to tie him down.

  He looked a little awkward as he explained how his fiancé had recently dumped him. Before he could go into too much detail, Maggie quickly changed the subject and asked him what he was doing out and about. He explained that he was also out Christmas shopping, but unlike Maggie who sounded as though she had a hundred people to buy for, he only had his parents and a sister to look after.

  “So,” Mike sat back against the seat and looked at Maggie intently, “tell me, how is it that your husband is not with you now? If you were mine, I’d be too scared to let you out of my sight.”

  His question took her by surprise. She felt her face redden and looked around uncomfortably. “Um, he’s still in Sydney, he’s picking up a new car and will be joining me shortly.”

  Mike nodded. “So that means you’re foot lose and fancy free until then?”

  Maggie wasn’t sure what was happening. The conversation seemed to be heavy with tension all of a sudden. Was Mike making a pass at her? She was not so stupid that she didn’t realise he was paying her an unhealthy amount of attention, but she couldn’t believe her next comment as it fell off her lips without a second thought. “That’s right,” she smiled at him, “foot lose and fancy free.”

  Chapter 60

  Saturday, 5 January 1980

  “Watch out for Max’s ghost,” Trevor warned as he ran off into the bush with one of the two torches in hand.

  I stood next to Ed thinking about where I could hide to best avoid the spotlight. “Was your story really true?” I was dying to know if he was telling the truth or not.

  “Nuh, I made it up.”

  “All of it? Even the part about Old Man Parker?”

  “Yep, all of it, I’ve never even heard of anyone being murdered in the Watagans, have you?”

  It’s one of those things that you’re never really sure about. It doesn’t take much before you start remembering snippets of things you’ve heard and put them together to suit the story you’re listening to at the time. Before, when Ed was telling his story, I was sure I’d heard something about people getting killed in the Watagans, but now that I knew his story wasn’t true, I wasn’t so certain.

  I admitted to Ed that I’d not heard anything either.

  “Don’t tell the others though, will you? I reckon I’ve got them bluffed.”

  I reckoned he had too. “Nah, I won’t tell.” Except Tom, that is, I thought to myself.

  I was just about to make a dash for the Bottle Brush tree when Tom’s torch shone its light on me. Having caught me in his spotlight, he came over and gave me the torch. “Here ya go, you’re in.”

  I felt much better with the torch in my hand. I even considered taking my time finding someone so that I could hold on to it a bit longer, but Chrissy was making such a racket behind a nearby bush, I would’ve had to have been deaf not to hear her. Just as I was handing her the torch, Trevor came out from behind a tree smacking his torch into the palm of his hand. The light flickered on and off with each hit. “The damn batteries are almost flat,” he complained. “It keeps going out on me.”

  “Never mind,” I said, “I think we’re making too much noise anyway. If we’re not careful Mum and Dad will come out to see what’s going on.”

  “Fair enough,” Trevor agreed. “Maybe we should go back into the tent.”

  I sent Ed out to round up the others and tell them to come back in. It must’ve been Saturday morning already and I didn’t want to get caught before we’d even started the séance.

  ***

  We decided that the best place to set the Ouija board up was on the table in the sunroom. Of course, having it there increased the risk of getting sprung, but it also reduced the chance of us setting fire to the tent with the candles. Tom carefully lifted Dad’s record player off the table and put it on the ground. Trevor did the same with the gas bottle and light. I put a candle on each corner of the table and put the Ouija board in the centre. There was just enough room for the six of us to sit at the table, three each side. I sat on one side with Tom to the right of me and Raelene to the left. Chrissy sat opposite me with Trevor and Ed either side.

  Since Chrissy was the only one with any experience, we let her take the lead. “Raelene, make sure you write everything down, even if it doesn’t make any sense,” she instructed. “Everyone else put one finger on the planchette like this.” Chrissy gently placed her pointer finger on top of the planchette, “but don’t push down on it or anything, just rest it there gently.”

  Everyone, apart from Raelene, copied Chrissy and put their finger on the planchette. The board was sideways from where I sat. Chrissy said it didn’t matter which way up it went, so I took her word for it.

  “Now what?” Trevor asked.

  “Hold your horses, you can’t rush these things.” Chrissy appeared to be trying to remember something and Trevor was clearly interrupting her. “Oh yeah, I remember now, everyone ready?”

  We said we were.

  “Okay, here goes.”

  As if by some weird transformation, Chrissy’s voice appeared to change from that of a bossy eleven year old to that of a soothing parent. “Everybody relax, I’m now going to ask the spirit of Shortie to join us.”

  We took a collective breath and all let it out at the same time. Chrissy started without further comment. “We would like to communicate with the spirit of Shortie O’Connor,” she said in her most soothing
voice. “If he’s present tonight, can he please let us know?”

  Everyone held their breath, not sure what to expect. Nothing happened. “Maybe you need to call him Darren, not Shortie,” I suggested, not knowing how proper these things needed to be.

  Chrissy tried again. “We would like to communicate with the spirit of Darren O’Connor. We mean him no harm.”

  I wondered how we could harm a ghost exactly, but kept my thoughts to myself. We waited for the second time, again without success.

  “This is crap,” said Trevor. “I told you it was a load of cod’s wallop.”

  “Shush,” Chrissy insisted, “it doesn’t always happen straight away.”

  “Here, let me try, I knew him better than Chrissy, maybe that’ll help.” I waited long enough for anyone who wanted to protest to do so. When no one did, I spoke into the empty air. “Shortie, if you’re out there, we’d like to talk to you. We miss you heaps and would be grateful if you could give us a sign that you’re here.”

  This time there was an unmistakable movement of the planchette. “Who did that?” Ed took his finger off the planchette and shook it as though it burned.

  “I didn’t,” said Tom.

  I shook my head. “Definitely wasn’t me.”

  Chrissy shushed us for a second time. “Let’s see what it says.”

  The planchette moved with surprising speed and stopped on the word yes in the top left hand corner of the board. I looked at Chrissy for confirmation. “Does that mean he’s here?”

  “I don’t know.”

  Trevor was still trying to figure out who moved the planchette. “Chrissy, you did that,” he accused.

  “Shut up you moron, I did not.” There was no sign off the soothing parent in her voice now.

  I jumped in and asked another question. “Who’s here with us tonight? Can you please tell us your name?”

  The planchette flew across the board and stopped at the letter G. We eyed each other suspiciously, but before any of us could accuse the other of pushing the planchette, it moved to the letter E.