Fire in Summer

by JH Fletcher

  It hadn’t been hard to track them; there were blokes you could pay to find out things like that. Only thing, now he knew, he wasn’t sure what to do about it.

  Down the hill the paddocks were ready for the new season. At least last year’s harvest had been good. Just as well; he had to pay for the new land and there was still money owing on the Edgemont farm.

  No end to it, he thought. Not that he was complaining. That was life — grab what you could, pay for it, do it again — but everyone ran out of time eventually. When that happened it might be a comfort to know there was someone to take over, build on what you’d done.

  A man needs a son, he thought. I’m not going to let her pinch mine.

  At Christmas, he had received two cards, one from Walter, the other from Kath. He’d put Walter’s in a drawer; the one from Kath he had burned.

  Now he hopped into the ute and drove down the hill. At what had been his old boundary he pulled off the track, climbed through the wire and set out to walk every inch of his new land, every nerve end tingling with the satisfaction of possession. More than I ever got out of Kath, he thought grimly.

  He would never forgive his mother if she made good her threat and left her section of the farm to Wilf, who had done blow-all to deserve it. Silly old chook … The way Wilf had shoved off after Hedley got back from the war … Who’d looked after things, then? Not bloody Wilf, that was sure.

  Perhaps Emily would have a change of heart but he wouldn’t put his money on it; he knew her too well. From the first, she’d said she wanted the profit from her own land to go to Wilf. Because he was down on his luck. Well.

  He had chatted to Horrie Marsh, his accountant. When it came to the dollars and cents, Horrie was as smart a bloke as walked, and between them they’d managed to fix things up.

  ‘We don’t work out profit by paddocks,’ Horrie had told him. ‘And the labourer is worthy of his hire.’

  ‘What’s that supposed to mean?’

  ‘It means you do the work, and you should get the rewards. The way I’ve structured it, your brother won’t get a look in.’

  Which was how it had worked out. Only last week Horrie was telling him how Dulcie had been to see him about it. Cheeky tart. Not that it had done her any good.

  ‘Three kids,’ Dulcie said. ‘It’s the best farm in the district and not enough coming in to feed a mouse.’

  Horrie speared her with a smile, wondering what she was complaining about. They were getting something, weren’t they? Let’s face it, something for nothing. If Wilf didn’t want to work —

  ‘Can’t,’ Dulde said. ‘His back —’

  Ah yes. The famous back.

  ‘Whereas my client —’ Horrie said.

  ‘Who?’

  ‘Hedley. Works all the hours in the day. Half the night, too. The labourer is worthy of his hire, Dulcie. It’s only reasonable he should be adequately remunerated for the work he puts into the place.’

  Meaning in plain English there was blow-all for anybody else. And Dulcie had gone away, razored by the accountant’s smile.

  Hedley reached the end of the paddock and turned to follow the wire down to the creek. Good bloke, Horrie. Worth what I pay him. Not that I’d ever tell him so.

  As for Walter … I’m going to sit down and have a think. Then I’ll know what I’m going to do about him.

  35

  KATH

  1957

  Kath continued to watch from the jetty and saw that Jeth was not closing the gap as quickly as she had expected. In fact, he seemed to have made little headway at all; was, if anything, further from the shoreline than when he’d started back.

  She watched, sickness in her throat. The arm beats were as regular as ever; she was wrong. Had to be. If she were not, the world would crack. Her hands were claws, clamped tight upon the slick-wet railing of the jetty. The wind had died a little; the sun was warm. It was a normal world. And the arms continued to rise and fall. She stared, her body rigid and aching, breath snared in her throat. He was nearer. Of course he was. She could tell he was. She lined up Jeth’s head with a rock on the cliff behind him, determined that the distance between him and it would grow, as it had to grow. And waited. The distance did not grow, but where he had before been in line with the rock, he was now a yard, ten yards, to seaward of it. And being carried backwards, she would have sworn, towards the distant headland.

  For the first time, her eyes devouring the distance that separated them, she saw his arms falter. There could no longer be any doubt about it: he was further away. The arm movements were ragged now, straining skywards. Blood was a torment in her head. Frantic, she turned to look about her, but the people who had been on the jetty when Jeth had entered the water were there no longer.

  There was a man on the shingle. Terror in her heart, her legs, she fled down the cruel jetty towards him, saw that it was the swimmer they had spoken to before. He stared at her as she ran, came quickly towards her. ‘What’s wrong?’

  She had lost control of her tongue, along with so much else. She pointed across the cove, gobbling frantically. Managed to say, ‘Swimmer … In the water …’

  The man’s eyes widened. He turned. Jeth was still there, but far out, barely visible against the glitter and swell of the murderous waves. ‘Bloody hell …’

  He ran to the boat ramp, where a knot of men, brawny and tanned, were gathered about an open boat. Kath was too far away to hear what he said, but in seconds they had shoved the boat down the ramp into the water, were aboard and, in a sudden roar of the outboard engine, were heading seawards.

  Kath waited, death in her heart. The boat was out a long time. She knew. Amid the laughing day, the gull cries, the heave and surge of the peaceful and treacherous sea, she knew. Had they found him alive, they would have been back. Yet, stubbornly, hope refused to die, clinging with frantic fingers to what remained of life and sanity. The fact that they had not returned might mean that he was alive, still. That the current had carried him further, but that he was still alive.

  God, she cried within the recesses of her tormented heart, he must live.

  Yet she knew. She knew in the silence, in the slow gathering of people from nowhere who stood and waited, and did not speak. She knew when the surly woman from the shop thrust a mug of coffee into her hand. She sipped automatically, not knowing what she was doing, while the raucous wolf-woman placed a podgy arm about her. It seemed to her that the very air knew.

  And then, finally the boat. The men. The people drained away; she was alone, islanded in the midst of dread. The boat ran its prow up the beach. She walked forward, stared unspeaking at the body lying within the hull.

  Afterwards … Kath had no memory of afterwards. Everything was swallowed by the only thing that mattered. Jethrow Douglas was dead, and with him had taken life, hope, love. Nothing remained, neither fear nor torment nor despair. Nothing. This is emptiness, she thought. This is death.

  There were formalities that might have torn, had she felt them. Papers to sign, statements to make. An ambulance that came, and departed. The police, concerned and understanding, but with a job to do.

  ‘Didn’t your husband know how dangerous it was to swim at low water?’

  Yes. No. Whatever pleases you.

  What will you do now? Tonight?

  I don’t know.

  Where will you stay?

  I don’t know.

  There will have to be an inquest, people to inform, forms to fill in, the funeral to arrange … The list of what must be done, endless and without meaning, echoed emptily.

  I don’t know.

  She was offered shoulders to cry on, arms to give comfort, a bed for the night. She stared, uncomprehending. Bed? Comfort? The words meant nothing. She had been brought up to be polite; she smiled, unspeaking. She walked away from the voices, those willing to help. She found the car.

  You sure you’re able to drive?

  Why not? I am not the one who drowned. I am dead, yes, but still capable of dr
iving.

  Are you sure you’ll be all right?

  She waved, meaninglessly. She smiled, meaninglessly. She drove into a life without meaning or hope or light. A life without life.

  Somehow, with no memory of the journey, she found herself back at the beach house. She parked the car, mechanically. She climbed out, locked the door, walked along the path. She climbed the wooden steps to the deck. She fumbled for the keys. She opened the door and went inside. Into a house of echoes and emptiness. Not yet of memory: but that, she knew instinctively, would come. She closed the door behind her.

  Jeth was dead. Terror and pain were the only things that kept her in touch with him. They made him real; they made him alive. While I live, he will live, she told herself.

  There was food to cook; she could not do it. Would have been unable to eat, if she had. One of Jeth’s shirts had been chucked in a corner of the bathroom. There was washing to be done; she could not do it, could not even pick up the shirt from where it lay. I must tell everyone, she thought. Tell who? Tell them how? She could not do it.

  So came night. Kath sat in the dead house, the silent house, in the darkness of sky and earth and soul. She sat. She waited. For death. For life. For the dawn. For an end to the nothingness. She sat. At length, without willing it, slept without dreams. Woke. For a moment did not remember. Then discovered herself still dressed, lying not in bed but upon the settee in the lounge, and knew.

  She got up, went to the bathroom, stared for a long time at the reflection of this woman who was dead. Took a deep breath. Went out into the new day. There was a world that must be faced.

  A life — how impossible it seemed — that must be lived.

  On the beach, the sea was a smile, the sand unrolled endlessly beneath her feet. She walked and walked: to the far headland, and the next headland. On and on. Until at last a line of cliffs crossed her path, stretching far out into deep water, and she could walk no further. She turned and came back: to the house, to the sun-bright day, even, little by little, to life.

  Later she went back to the cove alone. She walked along the top of the cliff, scourged by the horror that she sought desperately to forget.

  At one point she stopped and looked down at the sea. There was a band of rock, running parallel with the cliff and now exposed by the ebbing tide. From where she stood, Kath could see broken outcrops that looked like something seen on television, the ruins of a city devastated by earthquake or by flood. It seemed a fitting memorial to what she had had, and had no longer. I shall not forget, she thought. There will never be any hope of that, but perhaps in time I can learn to endure.

  Emily came to the funeral.

  It was something Kath never forgot. She had always been fond of her mother-in-law. Even when Emily had tried to talk her into going back to her husband, Kath had respected her; now and forevermore she loved her. Hedley did not come; she would not have expected it.

  There had been questions about where Jeth should be buried; his legal family was in the States, he was an American citizen. But there was no authority to spend money on shipping a casket home or, indeed, a great deal of money at all. His father, when approached, wanted nothing to do with it. Kath had no rights and was not asked, but was glad when the decision was made to bury him here. That way he would be close to her. Although she did not know what difference it could make, when Jeth was dead. Knew only that, dead or not, there was a measure of consolation in thinking of him lying in Australian dirt, not in some foreign and far-away place. She had talked to Aunt Maudie after her funeral; now she would have Jeth to talk to, as well.

  She wondered seriously whether she was sane.

  There were more mourners at the funeral than she would have expected. The senior partner of Jeth’s firm, who had been so delighted on his recent visit, flew back. A representative of the State Premier turned up, with flowers and a posh car. Several of the people from Jeth’s work — engineers and draughtsmen and a host of others — were there in horny-handed silence. She discovered that in the eyes of this section of the world, at least, Jeth Douglas had been an important, even brilliant, man.

  Yet the funeral of such an important and brilliant man was as dry and gritty as sand, conducted by a chook in a white robe who beamed toothily, put a melodramatic sob into his voice when braying of the deceased, whom he had not known, saying no word of comfort or insight or value.

  Even a no-hoper like Arch Griffiths would have run rings around this joker, Kath thought. Yet, ironically, his address did her good, because it was so appalling. Anger helped restore her to something approximating life.

  After it was over the senior partner spoke to her. About what a loss the firm, the world, had suffered through Jeth’s death. The Arts Centre, the towering monument to his talent, as he called it, was secure. Another member of the firm would supervise its completion, ensure that the job was done as Jeth would have wished. Of herself and her future, so suddenly stripped of life, he said nothing. Had she been Jeth’s wife … But was not; she had no status at all. Might even conceivably become an embarrassment, should the media decide to take up her story. So he spoke of safe things — regret, reputation, memory — he patted her hand, he smiled, he departed.

  The next day a man came to see her. He was young, dressed in a suit, button-down shirt, conservative tie. He came, he told her, from the senior partner. Who had taken a direct and personal interest in her well-being. Who thought of her fondly. Who did not wish her to suffer in any way as a result of her association with a deceased member of the firm.

  The young man offered her an envelope. Standing on the doorstep, she opened it. It contained a letter, typewritten, to be signed by herself, undertaking not to speak to anyone about her relationship with Jeth or what had happened. It also contained a cheque on an American bank for ten thousand dollars.

  Disbelief. ‘What is this?’

  The messenger uncapped a fountain pen, flourished it beneath her nose. ‘Sign the letter and the cheque’s yours.’

  To disbelief was added a slowly-gathering rage. She took the letter, tore it into pieces before his affronted eyes.

  ‘No letter, no cheque,’ he warned her hastily.

  She tore up the cheque also, held out the fragments to him. ‘Get out …’

  Shut the door on his protests. This was the worst moment of all. She leant her back against the woodwork, her heart racing. How dare they? How dare they?

  The next day a mud-stained ute drew up outside the door of the mill. The driver, in slouch hat, boots and shorts, walked up the path to the door, rang the bell. When Kath answered, she stared at him in silence. ‘Time to come home,’ Hedley said.

  An hour later Kath sat on a rock, hearing the millstream’s grey voice, while from the slope of the hill above the house the trees watched her.

  She had stood in the doorway of the house, hostility a fence to keep the intruder out.

  You out of your mind?

  Think about it. It makes sense.

  After everything that’s happened? I thought you’d come to say you wanted a divorce, not this. What’s in it for you? Why should you be willing to put up with it?

  I told you. Because it makes sense.

  Maybe to you.

  I’ll go for a drive. Give you half an hour to think about it. Then we’ll go back together.

  It is impossible, utterly. To go back, again, to that place peopled with eyes. To the tongues, razor-sharp. To pretend that all this was nothing, that it never happened … It is impossible.

  I have nothing but memories, and my son. This house is not mine. Jeth leased the beach house for me, but that is not mine, either. I’ve no money, no skills, no training, no job. I have no way of surviving, at all. If I refuse Hedley’s offer, so unexpected, how am I going to manage?

  She could sell her land. It would bring in enough to buy a small house but that would be it. She would never be able to live on what was left. Besides, to sell land … Even to think about it struck a blow at all she held of value. It
would damage Hedley, too, damage him badly, and in her heart she did not believe he deserved that.

  But what other possibilities were there? Very few. Waitressing? Working in a shop? Either would require skills and experience that she did not have. People had to start; surely they took trainees? But you are in your thirties, she reminded herself. An old woman, as far as training is concerned. No-one is going to take you on, at your age, or pay you a living wage if they do.

  She felt the baleful weight of Hedley’s eye.

  I’ll put an advert in the paper. Woman available. Will do anything.

  Yeah. Right.

  She thought, I know why he wants us back. Out of pride. However much it costs him, he cannot bear to give up what he thinks is his. Well, let him have his pride, if it means so much to him. There are other things he wants, too, but those he will never have. He wants his son, but there is no chance of that; Walter will go on evading him, as he always has. He wants me as his slave, but he’ll never have that, either. All this, if it is to happen at all, will have to be on my terms.

  A flash of light speared the green shadows. She looked up, saw the sun reflecting off a windscreen, a ute negotiating the hill. Hedley, true to his word, was back.

  ‘Music,’ Kath said.

  ‘What?’ Hedley was in no mood to bargain over what she might or might not have, but Kath was not to be moved.

  ‘I shall want a record player. Records.’

  Both of which cost money. He wondered where all the foolishness would end. Was about to refuse, but saw her expression and understood that there were limits, even now, beyond which she would not go. If he wished her to come back with him, he would have to humour her in the smaller things.