Sweet Home Summer

by Michelle Vernal

  Bridget nodded, feeling the tears well up at the sting of her usually mild-mannered mother’s words. Doing as she’d been told, she opened the door from the kitchen through to the laundry, her hand hovering on the back door handle. She felt sick, and swallowing hard, she opened the door.

  Her father was standing with his back to the house alongside the rows of staked peas that were on their last legs now as they got nipped nightly be the cooler evenings.

  ‘Dad?’ She stood on the back porch waiting there uncertainly.

  He didn’t turn around, so she spoke louder, but her voice betrayed her once more. ‘Dad?’

  This time he turned, his hands in his pockets as he began to walk towards the house, pausing as he drew level with her. ‘You’ll not leave the house other than to go to church or work for one month. And you won’t see that fellow again Bridget because so help me God if you do, you can pack your bags and leave. I won’t have a daughter of mine sneaking around and lying to me. Understood?’

  ‘Yes.’ She stood with her head down unable to look him in the eye for fear of what she would see there. This was far worse than being ranted and raved at, at least then she could have countered with an argument. She knew too, from the cold tone in his voice, that she could expect to see him waiting outside the Farmer’s building to escort her home from work each day at five o’clock until he felt she had regained their trust.

  She spent the rest of the afternoon in her room wondering how she could get word to Charlie. There would be no chance of meeting Clara in the foreseeable future. In the end, though, it was Charlie who got word to her, by passing a note to a sympathetic colleague to give to her at work before he left town.

  She’d read and re-read that note so many times, smoothing out the crumples. She knew it by heart. He’d been given his marching orders from the mine, he’d written, and Bridget had no doubt that her father had had a hand in that. He was going to Western Australia, to a place called Kalgoorlie where there was gold mining. He’d heard the lads at work talk about it and his plan was to keep his head down and save hard. Who knew? He might be the one to strike it big. Either way, he’d come back for her in two years’ time with enough money saved for a deposit on a house. That way, he’d written, he would feel he was a sure enough bet to be able to approach her father again – this time, if she would have him, for her hand in marriage. Would she wait for him? She wanted more than anything to tell him to his face, that yes, she would wait forever for him. In the meantime, his cobber Tom would act as a go-between passing on the letters he promised he would write.

  The words had smudged because of the countless times Bridget had run her fingers across the ink, imagining him writing it, her stomach aflutter at the thought of marriage.

  Present day

  Isla’s arms beneath her jumper were covered in goosebumps. She looked at her gran lost in her memories, and in her she could see herself in years to come. Bridget turned and looked at Isla, seeing the younger woman she’d once been mirrored back at her.

  ‘The letters never came, Isla. I never heard from Charlie again until the Valentine’s Day cards started to arrive a year after Tom passed away. You know the rest of the story, what happened to Clara and how Tom and I turned to each other after she died.’ Her sigh was heavy, but her voice when she spoke was clipped and to the point. ‘You can’t go back, Isla, the past is the past and that’s where it should stay.’

  Isla thought of Ben. Gran was right in some respects, but still, she couldn’t help wondering what had happened and why Charlie didn’t keep his promise.

  ‘Come on, that’s enough of all that, with any luck, the roast potatoes won’t be burnt to a crisp,’ Bridget said getting to her feet. She put the card she still clasped back where it had come from and closed the drawer on the past.

  Isla finished washing the roasting pan. It had been a sod of a job as the potatoes had indeed been stuck to the bottom of it. Lashings of gravy had salvaged the overcooked dinner, and it had been a quiet meal time. She turned the pan over to drain on the bench and glanced at the oven clock. It was just after seven. Gran was a creature of habit, and Isla knew she’d be settled in her recliner watching her favourite current affairs show. It would be a good time to give Carl a call, to see if he was free for the date Gran had in mind for the Project Matchmaker meeting and she was dying to confide in someone. The more she’d thought about what she’d learned this evening, the more she felt she couldn’t just leave things with Gran and Charlie the way they were. She was in need of advice, she decided, heading down to her room, phone in hand.

  ‘Oh my goodness yes, Isla, you totally have to ring him. Gran has a long-lost lover! How fabulous,’ Carl gushed down the phone after Isla had relayed Bridget and Charlie’s story.

  ‘Um, Carl would you mind not referring to Gran as ever having had a lover. It doesn’t sound right.’

  ‘Yes, I suppose when you word it like that, but Jane Fonda would disagree my lovely. Hold off on the telephoning him advice, because now the shock’s wearing off … I mean, my heart’s saying “yes, go for it.” It is hammering away, and each beat says you should get in touch with Charlie, and see how the land lies. My head, however, is shaking and saying if Bridget was as adamant, as you say she was about the past staying in the past, you should respect that. Give me a minute to mull it over will you?’

  ‘Sure.’

  There was silence down the phone and Isla stretched out on her bed, the book she had been reading lying open on the bedside table. Isla stared up at the ceiling rose and decided she’d fetch the duster and flick the spider web off it when she finished this call – if she ever finished it. Carl was taking his time. She jumped, hearing him shout out.

  ‘Sasha! What do you think you’re doing?’

  ‘Who’s Sasha, and what’s she doing?’

  There was a beleaguered sigh down the phone.

  ‘I’m in the former CBD doing a night time photo shoot, of which Sasha’s the star. The brief was to photograph an ethereal vision rising in the moonlight from the post-quake rubble alongside the rebuild in a designer dress. You know, a Phoenix rising from the ashes sort of thing. The problem is Sasha’s already split the seam of her Anna Stretton dress. She got herself in a right state over it too, so I told her to take a break. Guess what she goes and does?’

  ‘I’ve no idea,’ Isla said. She was finding this insight into the modeling world fascinating.

  ‘Takes herself off to Burger King, that’s what. She’s shoveling a Whopper burger in as we speak. Bloody models! Listen, Isla I’m not an advocate of the emaciated look by any means, I love the fuller figure but honestly, you do have to fit the clothes supplied, and a size ten Sasha is not. No matter what she and her agency say.’

  Isla could picture him running his fingers through his hair in frustration.

  ‘Right enough about Sasha – oh no! Oh, my God, I don’t believe it. She got fries too! I give up. Anyway, I’ve thought about the Char-Bridge situation, and I’ve never been one to listen to my head. The heart rules the roost, and I say this ‘the past is the past’ business of Bridget’s is code for, ‘I am scared.’ I think she’s frightened of the possibilities that meeting up with Charlie might bring.’

  ‘I think you’re right there.’

  ‘And you know the way I see it is we all make mistakes along the way, I mean just look at bloody Sasha over there. But not many of us get a second chance. You need to hear what this Charlie chap has to say for himself, find out his version of events. Then you can make a decision as to whether or not you override Bridget and invite him to Bibury. She’s not getting any younger and nor, I imagine, is this Charlie fellow. At their time of life, caution needs to be thrown to the wind. This could be their last chance at something wonderful and Isla my dear, life is too short for what ifs.’

  ‘Phew, I was hoping you’d say that. Perhaps not in quite so many words but we are on the same page.’

  ‘Oh my, I just had a rather spectacularly good idea.’

>   ‘What?’

  ‘If you decide to ask Charlie to Bibury, why don’t you invite him to come for the Matchmaker Festival?’

  ‘Oh Carl, imagine—’

  ‘I am, but we’re getting ahead of ourselves, ring him. I’ve got to go, Sasha just spotted the Yogurt Story. Be sure and tell me how you get on and I’ll see you in a couple of weeks at the meeting. Bye-eee.’

  Isla hung up. She’d already decided to head round to Callum’s shortly, and she sent off a quick text to that end. Not that she held out much hope of hearing back from him, he was hopeless at checking his phone. He was also as laid back as the hills, and she knew he wouldn’t mind an unexpected visit. Especially, if there was the promise of it turning into a booty call. She’d play that one by ear she thought, yawning, but she would try and get hold of Charlie from his place. Sitting up, she swung her legs over the side of the bed and cocked an ear. The television was on, but she was betting Gran would have nodded off in her seat by now. She never lasted more than an hour when she hit that recliner of hers. She decided to check to see if the coast was clear.

  She was indeed asleep. Her head was leaning back against the soft cushions of her chair, her feet crossed at the ankles on the footrest. Coal had managed to drag himself away from the fire she’d put a match to, to curl up on Bridget’s lap. He too was sound asleep. Satisfied she wouldn’t get caught a second time, she tiptoed across the hall and into her gran’s bedroom. Opening the drawer, she took out the bundle of cards once more and undid the ribbon, skimming the last card’s text until she spotted Charlie’s telephone number. With one last look over her shoulder, she added him to her phone’s contact list.

  Chapter 30

  ‘Gran, I’m heading round to Callum’s. I’m not sure if I’ll be back tonight or not,’ Isla said hoping her face wasn’t giving away the sudden attack of the guilt she felt at her skulduggery. The fire was dying down, she noticed, bending down and opening the door of the wood-burner before tossing another log into it. It was slow burning wood her father had gotten in for them through his work, and she knew it would burn for a while, keeping both her gran and Coal toasty. It was crazy lighting the fire this time of the year, but then that was the Coast for you.

  Bridget opened her eyes, and despite being half asleep managed to give her a disapproving look. Isla felt another stab of guilt at her premarital sexual goings-on which was ridiculous given she was a woman of thirty. Still, if the shoe were on the other foot … which, if this Charlie fellow kept his word and came over for the festival, it very well could be. She shuddered. Enough of that Isla Brookes, you are getting way ahead of yourself.

  Jeremy opened the door; he was still clad in his PE uniform of shorts and a Nike singlet from which his muscles bulged. He must be frozen, she thought. Or perhaps all that muscle mass kept him warm. Isla knew he was popular with the lady members of Bibury Area School’s faculty, thanks to Saralee, but he was too pumped up for her and there was just something about him that hinted at the possibility of his being a medallion wearer. The hair that protruded from the neckline of his singlet, perhaps? Glad to be ushered in from the rain outside, she followed him through to the lounge where the boys had the fire roaring. Callum was engrossed in a game of basketball on the flatscreen, and he grinned his welcome, patting the seat next to him on the couch. His eyes never left the screen as she sat down. Jeremy picked up the bowl of nuts from the coffee table and flopped down in the armchair. Resuming his position before she’d interrupted, Isla thought.

  Five minutes later, she was regretting having come over. It had been unplanned so she couldn’t complain that Callum wasn’t paying her attention. Still, the testosterone had just about knocked her out as the two men took on the shared role of armchair referees. It was not a night for venturing out really, but now that she was here, she could do what she’d come for and make the call to Charlie away from Gran’s bionic ears.

  On the pretext of making a cuppa, she left them to it. Instead of heading for the kitchen, though, she made a beeline for Callum’s bedroom and shut the door behind her. She sat down on the double bed which she knew from experience had a squeaky mattress. It was cold in here. She pulled the blanket Callum had folded at the bottom of the bed over her legs. The room was nondescript, but he kept it tidy. His mother had housetrained him, he’d told her the first time she’d stayed over. Retrieving her phone from the carryall she’d stuck the bare necessities in, Isla took a deep breath. It’s now or never, she decided as the phone began to ring and her stomach rolled over as a man’s voice said ‘hello.’

  ‘Hello, is that Charlie?’

  ‘It is, who is this please?’

  ‘Um, hi Charlie, I’m Bridget Collins’s granddaughter, Isla Brookes. Her daughter, Mary, is my mum.’

  There was silence, and she hoped the shock hadn’t seen him off. ‘Are you there?’ she asked.

  ‘I am, but this has come a bit out of the blue. You’re Bridget’s granddaughter you say?’ His understandable wariness took on an urgent tone. ‘Is she alright?’

  ‘Yes, yes, sorry. I should have said first off that this call’s nothing to worry about, she’s fine. She doesn’t know I’m ringing you though.’

  Isla explained how she’d come across the cards he had been sending these past years tucked away in a drawer. ‘Gran, I mean Bridget, was very reluctant to tell me anything about you. She just said you broke her heart. I suppose I felt that there are two sides to every story and well, that’s why I’m ringing you really, to hear your side of the story.’

  There was a harrumphing sound. ‘I broke her heart?’ His voice had gone up a couple of notches. ‘I wrote to that woman every week for a year, I’ll have you know. I kept my promise to her, and she never wrote back, not once. It was my heart that was broken.’

  Isla frowned, staring at Callum’s suit hanging in readiness for the next day on the back of the door. She hadn’t expected this, and she pressed the phone closer to her ear in order not to miss a word he had to say.

  ‘I left Bibury because her family didn’t approve of my being Catholic. It was Bridget’s father who put an end to us seeing each other. I lost my job because of him too, not that I blame him, it was the way things were back then. I decided to go to Australia because the money was good there, better than it ever was on the Coast. The plan was I’d come back in a year or two with enough money for us to be married if Bridget would have me. I thought if I were a man of means, her parents might see me in a different light.’

  Isla tried to visualize the man at the other end of the phone but couldn’t. The postmarks on the envelopes he’d sent were from Perth, and it would be late afternoon there. She might not have been able to form a mental picture of him, but that the disbelief in his voice at the way things had turned out was genuine, she was certain. He was agitated too, and she hoped she’d done the right thing in calling him, she didn’t want to be responsible for any sudden heart attacks.

  ‘I heard through one of the lads at the mine, who came to Kalgoorlie a year or so after me, that Bridget had gone and married my old mate, Tom Collins. I couldn’t believe it. I couldn’t believe either of them could have done that to me. Then when I heard what happened to poor Clara, has Bridget told you about her?’

  ‘Yes, she has.’

  ‘Well, I surmised it was the grief over her dying that brought them together. Tom was there, and I wasn’t. Though, I never understood why she didn’t reply to any of my letters, not a single one. It was cruel to leave me hanging like that.’

  Isla bridled a bit at the mention of her granddad. Her grandparents had been happy together hadn’t they? She recognized then that she didn’t know, who knew for certain what went on inside a marriage? Her mum and dad were different, of course. Those two were transparent in their marital dealings. Her dad still struggled thirty-six years down the track to keep his hands to himself where her mother’s derriere was concerned. Tom Collins might have been a gruff old man, but she could recall him pushing her on the swing down at
Banbridge Park for what had felt like hours on end. Her five-year-old self calling, ‘Higher Granddad, higher!’ He never complained or said he’d had enough and she’d felt like she was flying high over the tops of the Punga trees.

  ‘Perhaps your letters got lost. Gran told me she never heard from you again after you left Bibury. She assumed it was you who’d broken your promise to her.’

  ‘She never heard from me?’ He didn’t sound convinced.

  ‘It’s true and if you don’t mind my asking, if you feel so let down by her, why do you want to see her again?’

  His sigh was weighted. ‘When you get to my age you question things, choices you made, paths you took. I never stopped loving her, you know.’

  ‘Loving the idea of her.’

  ‘No, I loved Bridget Upton with everything I had. Nobody else has ever come close.’

  Isla had goosebumps, and she pulled the blanket up around her knowing it wouldn’t make any difference. ‘Did you marry?’

  ‘There was never anyone who could hold a candle to Bridget. She was a beauty. I wasn’t a monk by any means, though. I’ve two fine sons to two fine ladies both of whom I’m on amiable terms with. My boys are both married with kids of their own and live here in Perth. They’re good lads; they pop in on their old dad regularly.’

  Isla found herself thawing towards this kindly sounding old gent. ‘I’ve got a brother who lives over in Emerald.’

  ‘Ah, he’s in mining then.’

  ‘Yes, my dad was too, but when Granddad got sick from the coal dust, my dad decided to get out of it. He’s been working at a wood processing plant in Greymouth for the last eight years. Mum works in the local pharmacy and her brother, Jack, lives in Greymouth. He’s something or other high up in the mining hierarchy.’

  ‘I can hear Bridget in your voice.’

  ‘Really?’ Isla didn’t think she sounded anything like her gran.

  He laughed. ‘Don’t sound so surprised. You’re her granddaughter, aren’t you? Tell me about yourself Isla, what’s your story?’