The Healing Season

by Catherine Evans

  His eyes were really green, not hazel. Maybe with a smattering of silver. They were his most startling feature. He was tanned and muscular, like most young farmers. He had a pleasant face. Not movie-star gorgeous. That would stand out way too much in Dulili.

  She’d become so comfortable with him that she didn’t look at him, not in an assessing way. So why was she now? Was it only that Uncle Mike was making her uncomfortable? Or was she—

  There was a lull in the conversation and Uncle Mike got up to leave. The men exchanged a handshake and she got an extra tight squeeze. ‘You look after yourself,’ Mike said as he headed out to his truck, Lachlan behind him. She nodded but she didn’t follow them, needing time to herself, even if it was only a few minutes.

  She was unsettled. Uncle Mike had made her look at Lachlan differently and she wasn’t comfortable with that. She wanted a colleague not a boyfriend, or even another friend. But why was she cooking dinner for him? She could have taught him in the shop and sent him home. She tapped against her jaw. Scratched the side of her head.

  He was a clean slate. That’s what she liked. He didn’t know her past. He only knew her now. She could be who she was now, not compared to who she used to be and found wanting.

  Lachlan came back and she immediately apologised. ‘Sorry about Mike.’

  He lifted his shoulder as if he knew exactly what she was apologising for. ‘It didn’t bother me at all. You farmer-types all check each other out like you’re measuring for market.’

  Her mouth dropped open and Lachlan laughed.

  But he didn’t understand. That wasn’t all she was apologising for. She was apologising for Mike staking a claim by dropping Paul’s name … but somehow she couldn’t bring herself to explain that. She couldn’t explain Paul to Lachlan. It was better he didn’t know. He would treat her differently after he found out, and it was refreshing to have someone treat her normally.

  Lachlan pulled her from her thoughts. ‘Are you still up for teaching and feeding me?’

  ‘Yeah. C’mon.’ She flicked out the lights, then thought to ask, ‘Do I assess people like that too?’

  Lachlan laughed and refused to answer as he followed her upstairs. She took his non-answer to mean that she did it too. Hopefully it didn’t mean he’d caught her assessing him. That would be way too embarrassing.

  She opened the door. ‘Welcome to the upstairs.’ They entered into the kitchen. It was only a small flat above the shop and Alicia hadn’t done much about making it home. It was functional and held her stuff. It wasn’t her idea of home but it suited her while she got the business going. There was a small lounge room off to the left. ‘Bathroom’s that way.’ She pointed through the lounge to the open door. Her bedroom was off the kitchen and the door was closed, so she didn’t bother pointing that out. ‘I thought we’d work best at the kitchen table. What do you think?’

  The kitchen table was strewn with material. Lachlan looked at the mess dubiously.

  ‘What on earth…?’ Lachlan was staring at the papers on the table as if they were alien creatures. He glanced at her, his expression troubled. ‘Is this for me?’

  She waved her hand to indicate he should sit, before she plonked into a chair and picked up the piles of pages. She shuffled through them while waiting for him to sit and settle. She bit her lips as she thought of how to start, how to explain. It was best to know how much he wanted to learn.

  ‘What do you want to learn?’ He looked blankly at her, so she tried a different question. ‘Do you want to read a novel?’

  ‘What?’ His scrunched face and backwards motion gave her the answer she expected.

  ‘So if you don’t want to read a novel, why do you need to learn the way kids do at school?’ She waited a bit while the thought worked its way into his head. She put down the first page, slid it across the table so that it sat in front of him, and then did the same for the next one, and the next, until they were like mug shots assembled before him.

  He looked up at her, then down at the images on the paper. He looked up and raised an eyebrow, tipping his head slightly.

  ‘So, what are they?’ she asked.

  His nose crinkled as he gave her a look of utter confusion. ‘Bags of oats.’

  ‘How do you know that?’

  He smirked. ‘Because I’ve been moving them all week.’

  She chuckled. ‘Seriously, what tells you that they’re oats, and not wheat?’

  His finger was hesitant, hovering over the page at first, then it drifted across the image before finally landing on the word ‘oats’ on the bag.

  ‘How do you know that it says oats?’ She paused for a second, then hurried on before he made another sarcastic remark. ‘I know it’s a silly sounding question but there’s a purpose here, truly.’

  When he tipped his head to the side as if he couldn’t work out what she was asking, she shuffled a wheat bag photo across the table, then a bag of canola, and one of field peas.

  He smiled and nodded. ‘I get it. At the start these all looked the same.’ He made a circle in the air with his fingers, over all the photos. ‘Then you said something about moving all the oats together, and I noticed we moved all the ‘o’ bags. So, yeah, the letter the word starts with lets me know it’s oats.’ He looked up and his smile widened. ‘W for wheat.’

  ‘So there’s a pattern to these bags, and you’ve worked that out. And you know the alphabet, so you can recognise letters that go with sounds.’

  He nodded, then pointed to the top half of the bags. ‘But when there’s all this up here, I look at it and panic. There’s too much for me to work out.’ That was where most of the words were, lines of text rather close together.

  ‘Okay. Good. So now we know where to start and how to make this work.’

  ‘We do?’

  She nodded vigorously and grinned. ‘Yes. When we get stock in, I’ll show you where the patterns are, and where the word is you’ll need. That way, you can work out if you need a mark or if you can read it okay.’

  He nodded hesitantly.

  She scooped up the seed photos and put down photos of a few boxes of boots. ‘So when you’re in the shop and someone wants Redback boots, size 8, how do you know what to get?’

  He moved his hand straight to the Redbacks. He pointed at the number 8 in the bottom right of the box. ‘I look for this.’

  ‘And how do you know they’re Redbacks?’

  He made huge eyes at her as if he thought she was insane for asking such an obvious question. ‘There’s a whopping great spider on the box.’

  ‘So, brand recognition is important.’

  He frowned and sat back. ‘What?’

  ‘You use brand recognition, logos, to help identify things. I bet when I showed you around, you paid attention to the logos that went with different things.’

  He nodded slowly.

  ‘And with the chemicals …’ She put away the boot photos and dropped some chemical drum images in their place. ‘You know most of them by the colour of the writing, or the logo on the label, right?’

  He began to smile, then chuckled softly, as if she’d suddenly decoded something he’d never understood. ‘You’re right. That’s what I do.’

  ‘And reading’s the same thing. You just have to learn which bunch of letters goes with what word.’

  He sat back and folded his arms. ‘Man, you just made that sound easy.’

  She smiled and gave him the pages of photos she’d printed. ‘Sorry, it won’t be easy. But you’ve got lots of the skills already, so you’re on your way.’

  He rubbed his chin and jaw while he contemplated the pile of images in front of him.

  While he was thinking, Alicia got up, grabbed the stuff for cooking, then put the wok on to heat. She’d chopped the vegies earlier, and defrosted beef strips, so all she had to do was cook the stir-fry. She’d thought they needed a quick meal for their first night while they got organised. She was glad she’d thought ahead. It gave her time to watch him while h
e worked through the lesson.

  Lachlan shuffled through the photos, running his finger over different words. She hoped he was pleased with how many he could identify. She’d love to know how many words he knew but she wasn’t sure he was ready for the pressure of a ‘test’. The questions she’d already asked had put him on the spot enough.

  He’d been defensive but she expected that. What thrilled her was how much he understood and how quickly he grasped the new ideas. She’d expected reluctance and hesitation at least. But he wasn’t like Mum. He wanted to learn and it looked like he had a fair bit of knowledge already.

  ‘I thought on Thursday we might mark the identifying words and see which ones you know and which ones you still have to learn.’ She threw the sliced beef into the wok and stir fried it quickly.

  ‘Not tonight?’

  ‘Nah.’ She looked over and grinned. ‘I thought you needed an easy night to start with.’

  He chuckled and kept shuffling through the images. ‘I thought you’d make it like school.’

  ‘Where’s the fun in that?’ The meat was cooked, so she tossed in all the pre-sliced vegies and stirred while they chatted.

  ‘Is it meant to be fun?’ His voice was so hollow, as if he’d never experienced fun and learning simultaneously.

  ‘I think it should be. What’s the point of learning if you get no enjoyment from it?’ She left him pondering while she threw in oyster sauce and sizzled that up. Finally, a packet of noodles went into the wok and she shifted them around to warm and get covered in juice. It was nothing fancy but surely he hadn’t come expecting fancy.

  When it was ready, she served it into large bowls and took them to the table.

  ‘You cooked dinner? Already?’ Lachlan appeared stunned. Had he never had a stir-fry? Or had no one ever cooked one for him? Or had he just been lost in his thoughts he hadn’t noticed time passing?

  ‘It’s only stir-fry. I thought I’d do something quick so we could work tonight on the words.’ She was a bit defensive and she didn’t want to be like that.

  ‘Gee. I’ve never cooked something that quickly, ever.’

  ‘I chopped it this morning so all I had to do was chuck it in and heat.’

  He stuck his fork into the meal with some trepidation. Was he checking that it was cooked? Her hackles lifted but before she said anything, he took a mouthful and his eyes widened. Nodding, he spoke with his mouth full. ‘This is good. So good.’

  Somewhat appeased, Alicia felt her bristles settle down.

  After he finished chewing, he placed his fork on the plate. ‘That was really rude. I didn’t realise you were cooking. Then I wasn’t expecting it to be so tasty. My cooking’s not like this. And then I spoke with my mouth full.’ He hesitated before adding, ‘I do know how to be a better guest.’

  She grinned and waved her fork. ‘Forget it. I’m glad you’re enjoying it. I get sick of cooking just for me.’

  While eating, Alicia developed a burning need to explain about Mike … and Paul. It was crazy because Lachlan didn’t need to know but she needed to speak. Needed to clear the air that felt heavy.

  ‘About Mike,’ she began after she’d served Lachlan a second helping. She thought she’d have enough for left overs tomorrow night but she’d have to rethink that plan.

  Lachlan nodded but didn’t miss a beat with his feeding.

  ‘Mike’s Paul’s uncle.’

  ‘Yeah, he said that,’ Lachlan replied between mouthfuls. It didn’t seem to matter that he had no idea who Paul might be. Unless he knew who Paul was. Maybe someone in town had said something already but he gave no indication of that. He’d surely make some sympathetic murmur or gesture.

  Giving herself time to think, she let him finish eating. Why did she want Lachlan to know? Would he look at her differently? Was she ready to talk about Paul? To him? Mike had started this but Lachlan would have found out about Paul eventually. It was probably better that she told him now the subject had been broached.

  ‘Paul was my best friend. My boyfriend. We were going to get married in two years’ time,’ she said with more force than she should have.

  Lachlan put down his fork and looked up at her. ‘Was?’ He’d finished eating.

  She nodded once before pulling out her chair, turning it around and straddling it. Her chin rested on the rail across the back. It was easier to talk while supported, and shielded, by the chair back. ‘He was killed overseas last August.’

  ‘Was he a soldier?’

  ‘No. Wrong place, wrong time. In a market. Suicide bomber. Fifteen others killed too.’ It was a heck of a lot harder to say this than she imagined. She shouldn’t have started to say anything.

  ‘Oh, hell. That’s awful.’ Lachlan’s gaze was gentle, concerned, and compassionate, without being pitying or horrified.

  ‘Thought you should know who we were talking about.’

  A long silence descended. She rested her head on her hands, thinking about Paul. Good things. Things that weren’t going to have her cry. Like how he’d make her laugh when she was mad at him. Or how he’d see something in a way she never could, like a tree, the sunlight, clouds, even her parents.

  After a long time, Lachlan cleared his throat. He said softly, ‘You don’t have to explain anything to me, Alicia, ever.’

  ‘Oh. Right.’

  He tugged at his earlobe. ‘No. Wait. Don’t take that the wrong way. I’d like to hear, I’d like to know but I’m not owed an explanation. I work here. I’m new in town. I accept that things happened before I got here and they have nothing to do with me.’

  She nodded. Another long silence.

  He tipped his head to the side. ‘Do you miss him? Paul?’

  She didn’t expect him to ask that. Maybe he just wanted to know. Her arms folded across her body, not to shut him out but to hold herself together. She nodded. ‘Every second, of every minute, of every day.’

  ‘Eight months isn’t long to miss someone.’

  A sigh escaped her. ‘Thank you.’ Another long moment. ‘Not many people think that.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘That it’s not long. Most people seem to think I should be ‘over it’ by now, whatever that means.’ As the words left, it was like her lungs filled more freely. Her shoulders weren’t so tight, her neck muscles loosened.

  Lachlan almost whispered his reply. ‘Not sure you ever ‘get over’ anything in life. You just make do.’

  She sat quietly while she puzzled about that. She’d never ‘got over’ any deaths—people or animals. Growing up on a farm, she knew about death, and life, but that hadn’t made the acceptance of loss any easier. She recognised the cycle of life and that death had to be, not that it made accepting it any easier. Death hurt. Every death caused pain to her soul, sometimes a tiny pinprick when she found a dead baby bird, and sometimes a great gaping gash, like Paul. Maybe the holes had filled or closed over like cuts to her skin but the scars remained.

  When she heard the water running, she spun out of her reverie. Lachlan was filling the sink and had cleared away the dishes. ‘You don’t have to wash up.’

  ‘You cooked. I wash.’ He proceeded to do just that, refusing her attempt with the tea towel, telling her to sit and relax.

  She couldn’t relax. Her mind was running a marathon. How did he understand how she felt? ‘Have you lost someone close?’ she asked.

  For a second, his whole body seized, before a tremble passed through. ‘Never had anyone close.’

  ‘But you must have come from somewhere …’ She let the sentence drift off because it was an invasion of his privacy and she’d no idea what she was asking or what she had walked into. But judging by the stiffness of his stance, it wasn’t something he wanted to discuss.

  ‘I came from lots of somewheres before here. Doesn’t mean anyone was close.’

  She couldn’t fathom that. In Dulili everyone was close, sometimes too close. At uni, she’d lived on campus where all the students were close. What would it be like
to have no one around you? No support? What if she’d never met Paul? Never known what they had together?

  ‘I shouldn’t have told you that.’ His words were softly said as he pulled the plug from the sink. Maybe he hoped she wouldn’t hear them.

  ‘You can tell me anything or nothing or whatever in between. Like you, I don’t need to know but I’m happy to listen.’

  Chapter 6

  On Thursday night, when he and Alicia met for his second lesson, Lachlan was determined not to discuss the past. He had no intention of telling anyone about his life. He’d started fresh in Dulili, the past well and truly put behind him. He wasn’t going to dredge it up for anyone. The future was more important, and he had something to discuss with Alicia that would keep them both focused forwards. ‘At the dollar meeting last night Evelyn mentioned you.’

  ‘Me?’ He couldn’t tell if she was concerned or curious.

  ‘She said you were keen to get more involved and wanted to know what we—the ‘dollar people’— thought you could do to support our lives in Dulili.’

  Alicia shook her head. ‘I wondered if the shop could play a larger role. Like maybe run some ag info nights or have farm safety brochures.’

  He nodded. ‘Oh, great ideas. Count me in to help.’

  ‘What did people say?’ Alicia was, well, he still wasn’t sure what she was. Curious more than excited. Hesitant more than keen.

  He hadn’t been here long but he could see that everyone in Dulili loved Alicia. She, on the other hand, kept her distance from everyone. She was friendly, polite but somewhat remote. Like she had to keep people away. He didn’t think she was really like that, she’d probably changed after her boyfriend’s death. That was kind of the vibe he got.

  ‘We haven’t really responded yet. She asked us to think about it before next meeting.’

  Alicia nodded, but a frown was etched into her forehead.

  ‘What’s the problem?’ he asked. ‘I wouldn’t have said anything if I thought you’d be worried. I just wanted to say I thought it was a great suggestion. Everyone thought it would be good to get more involved with you and your ideas. That town painting idea’s marked you as a genius.’ He grinned but she didn’t.