Simmering Season

by Jenn J. McLeod

  ‘Oh please, do not let my mind go there. Besides, she’s too old for Noah.’

  ‘Hmm, yes, older woman and younger man. Never happens.’ Ethne nudged Maggie’s shoulder.

  ‘He’s hardly a man.’

  ‘Look again, love.’

  Maggie knew how fast Noah was growing up without looking. The signs were everywhere. ‘Don’t suppose it’s legal to chain your son up to his bed at night, is it?’

  Ethne’s trill when she laughed always sounded at odds with the woman’s very generous proportions. She stood there in the purple promotional T-shirt like a bulging signboard for bourbon whiskey, hair like grey fairy floss, a flowing purple peasant skirt and a sleeveless patchwork vest with buttons that had no hope of ever buttoning.

  ‘It is the first day of October,’ the barmaid said, looking up at Maggie over her half-glasses.

  ‘What’s that got to do with anything?’

  ‘Summer storm season officially starts today.’

  Maggie did know that. Tracking weather patterns was part and parcel of life in the country where one intense event could mean the difference between bumper crops or no crops at all. They’d had so much rain already this year. One extreme, then the other. Politicians were gleefully announcing, ‘No more drought’ and ‘The drought is over’. The reality was though, now they’d finished lamenting the dry, locals were cursing a new menace …

  Too much blasted rain.

  If the early heat first thing in the morning and the increasing grey clouds each afternoon hadn’t been enough to let Maggie know storm season was close, the half-dozen men in orange in the beer garden yesterday had reminded her. The week before, there’d been a briefing for the local State Emergency Service volunteers and Ethne had needed time off work to attend. What a remarkable sight. Ethne in the bright orange SES overalls, which she wore with pride and always kept handy so she’d be ready when needed.

  ‘And what’s the official start of storm season got to do with anything right now?’ Maggie asked, looking at a Wedgwood sky—blue, patterned with white. ‘Looks like a perfectly beautiful day to me.’

  ‘No time for complacency. The SES suggests people batten down and prepare when storms are due, and it’s looking like we might be seeing our first-ever inland cyclone—called Fiona.’

  ‘Very funny.’

  ‘Thinkin’ I might look up the manual to see what the SES suggests you do with your son when a Category Five storm like that one hits town.’

  ‘Even funnier. Thanks. You’re a lot of help.’

  ‘I try. Come on. Best prepare to welcome your guest.’

  That night was the quietest dinner on record: Maggie angry at herself for having created this situation, Fiona apparently angry at the peas for refusing to stay on her fork, and Noah? He seemed different from the sullen, silent son he’d been morphing into over the last year or so, angry at the entire world.

  ‘All settled in, Fiona?’ Maggie enquired.

  ‘Yes. Thanks,’ she added as an afterthought, or perhaps because her attention was on something more interesting on her mobile phone.

  At the last minute this morning, Maggie had changed her mind about putting Fiona in the residence, instead preparing a single room at the far end of the first-floor accommodation. Calingarry Crossing’s hotel was much like every other two-storey country pub: a corner position on the main street, decorative balustrades, weathered boards on the outside, high ceilings and fancy cornices inside, and small but comfortable upstairs guest rooms. In addition to Fiona’s pub room having a single bed, it was one of two rooms with a private bathroom, which meant no sharing the common facilities. Maggie had already cleaned the room, aired it, and added a small vase with lavender stems she’d picked from the bush growing without much attention at the back of the hotel.

  As Maggie had left Fiona to settle in, the vase of lavender was the first thing pushed aside without regard in order to make way for the Gucci carryall. She could only pray that after familiarising herself with the town and her grandmother in the next day or two, the girl would feel comfortable enough to move in with her and out of Maggie’s pub. Until then, Maggie would have to practise patience.

  ‘How was school today?’ she asked her son, hoping for more than a one-syllable response.

  ‘Same.’

  ‘Did you remember to feed the dogs tonight?’

  ‘I’ll do it after X Factor.’

  Maggie was learning to dislike reality TV shows, particularly those that fed false hope to people seeking stardom. What was it her father always said? ‘A person can’t be a star. The only stars are God’s creation and they are firmly set in the sky.’ Reality never lived up to the dream, in Maggie’s experience, but at the same time she didn’t want to quash her son’s enthusiasm for his music. While he had talent, she wanted him to see there was more he could do with that talent than sing on a stage.

  ‘Dogs first, homework, then television,’ she said. ‘In that order.’

  ‘Geez, Mum, give me a break.’ Noah glared, first at Maggie and then in Fiona’s direction, his cheeks red. What had once been an adorable blush on her baby boy was suddenly an agonising flush of embarrassment.

  Maggie took a deep breath. ‘I’m sorry, Noah, but you do have homework, don’t you?’

  ‘I’ve done most of it.’

  ‘Well, the rest shouldn’t take too long then.’

  With a groan, Noah picked up his plate and left Maggie alone with Fiona, who had one hand still poking peas around the plate with her fork while the other hand poked her phone.

  Even from her seat on the opposite side of the table Maggie could smell a strong perfume, the scent of a woman bathed in lotions and potions meant to allure as much as beautify, a trifecta of sickly-sweet fragrance, hair product and moisturiser. She’d noticed it waft by as Fiona swept past her on the way into the hotel earlier. Unlike Amber’s classic sophistication, Fiona’s beauty was in her bohemian look, exaggerated by big gypsy earrings, eyeliner that turned up at the outer corners of big, blue get-whatever-you-want eyes, and a tiny nose stud—diamond, of course—in the crease of one nostril. Then there was the tattoo of a feather Maggie spotted on the back of her neck. Not hard to miss tonight with Fiona having pinned up her hair with what looked like two small gem-encrusted chopsticks.

  They probably weren’t chopsticks any more than they were fake gemstones, Maggie surmised. She was, after all, Amber Bailey-Blair’s daughter.

  ‘Fiona?’ Maggie tried again. ‘Did you want to talk about anything?’

  ‘I have a call to make,’ she said, pushing the plate with her half-eaten meal into the centre of the table for the invisible servant to carry to the kitchen and wash up. ‘I’ll be in my room.’

  Open-mouthed, Maggie watched the girl leave before letting her own knife and fork drop heavily, the clunk of metal on ceramic disguising her huff.

  That went well, Maggie.

  ‘Here ya go, love.’

  A glass of red wine came from behind and slid under Maggie’s nose.

  ‘Thanks, Ethne. I shouldn’t.’

  ‘Yes, you should. Medicinal.’

  ‘Hardly.’

  ‘Drink it down. I’m trained in emergency situations and this is an emergency. No different to giving brandy to someone unconscious in the snow.’

  Maggie stared up at the woman. ‘Our local emergency service training teaches you what to do with unconscious people in the snow?’

  ‘Of course not. This one’s from my own personal remedies. I figure you’ll be unconscious soon enough if you keep hittin’ your head on that brick wall.’

  ‘You heard, huh?’

  ‘Heard what? The sounds of shitty-livered silence?’ Ethne waved her cleaning cloth in the air before focusing on a red-wine stain on the adjacent table. ‘You know it can take a few days for the new chick to settle in.’

  ‘Hmm, yes, but she’s not my chick. Not my problem at all.’

  ‘I sure hope, for your sake, she’s not going to be a problem.�
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  It had been a quiet night in the dining room with only a few locals dropping in and an older couple who were passing through on their way to relatives at one of the stations further west. Maggie had told them about the state of the pot-holed local road and the number of gates they’d have to access, offering them a room if they wanted to wait until morning. They did. The couple told Maggie they were touring the state. ‘Having ourselves a little adventure and spending the kids’ inheritance,’ the man had explained with a chuckle. Then the pair had kissed and giggled like newly-weds, while Maggie watched from the bar, envy dragging her down.

  ‘So mother bird, you want me to stay on ’til close tonight?’

  ‘Would you mind, Ethne? I’m in no mood to be chatty and no one wants a grumpy barmaid.’

  ‘You best get some sleep. You’ve got that brekkie meeting about the centenary fair day tomorrow. More brick walls to hit your head against there too, I reckon.’

  ‘I’d prefer to stick my head in the sand until it’s all over. Why did I volunteer?’

  ‘You were volunteered, as I recall, and sticking your head in the sand ’round these parts will only get it bit by bull ants.’

  ‘Like I said … that sounds preferable to me.’

  Ethne sniggered. ‘Awright now, you go on, love. Old Barney’s out there. He’ll be holdin’ up the bar ’til close. He can make himself useful and help me lock up.’

  ‘Old Barnacle Bill? He’ll probably help you do more than that if you let him.’

  Ethne chirruped. ‘Yeah, like that’s ever going to happen at my age.’

  Or mine, Maggie mused, heading off to an empty bed with hopes of something that resembled sleep.

  7

  Maggie stripped down to her knickers and stood in front of the open bedroom window, her arms wide, her body tantalisingly exposed; except with no visible moon, the room and the street below were as dark as each other. There was nothing beyond her tiny room: no river flowing freely, no endless sky, no stretches of Calingarry’s undulating landscape. The sash window, still broken from when she’d occupied this room as a teenager, was propped open with a long chock of wood. The moon was up there somewhere, hidden behind a thick layer of cloud that had gathered through the evening. Only the red glow from her clunky old clock radio, a sixteenth-birthday present from her brother, illuminated the room.

  Sheer, lace curtains billowed from an occasional puff of air and Maggie moved her body closer to let the fabric brush between her legs. She closed her eyes and breathed deep. Her breasts prickled, turning her nipples hard, the sensation enhanced as lace fingers scraped against her skin. Moving closer still, she willed the curtains to continue their caress, imagining a time when she’d enjoyed the thrill of Brian’s fingers stroking her body.

  He might not have looked like the old Brian in the café the other day, but when she’d closed her eyes as they hugged, there was a moment when she remembered a younger man who’d once been all spice and sex. She missed sex. Not the orgasm part—she could manage that all by herself—but the intensity and completeness that came from being adored and wanted by a man, that first teasing touch that held the promise of more and warmed everything from her toes to her ears.

  ‘Argh!’ Maggie took a frustrated swipe at the curtains, jerked the roller blind halfway down and threw herself on top of the bed sheets.

  This was all Fiona’s fault. Being stick insect skinny, yet pert, pretty and alluring was everything else Maggie missed. Was she jealous of Fiona? Who wouldn’t be? Even the giggling grey nomads in the bar tonight had stirred Maggie’s green-eyed monster. Life wasn’t fair and sometimes it really hurt. Fiona had Amber’s looks and an inheritance that put a little country pub to shame. Material objects had never featured in the Lindeman household. Maggie had learned early to make do, with her mother regularly sorting the family’s wardrobes into boxes and bags and giving anything not worn in the last six months to charity. ‘Farmers are always needy,’ she used to tell her daughter, ‘even if they never say it outright.’ The throwaway lines had painted a hopeless picture of farming and convinced a young Maggie that if she was to make something of herself she’d have to get out of Calingarry Crossing.

  She’d grown up hearing about hardship. At night over their family dinner her parents would use a kind of code to talk about which farmer was losing the battle, refusing to let bullying bureaucrats and poor policy decisions push him off the land he loved. Sometimes a sombre Reverend Joe Lindeman would discuss an ‘accident’—another code that Maggie had figured out. In a small town some deaths seemed easier to stomach when called that.

  But ‘reckless stupidity’ was how her heart-broken father referred to the act that had killed her brother. Even though he’d stopped saying it aloud a long time ago, Maggie knew her father thought it still. At least he had up until the moment he could no longer remember the tragedy of Michael’s death in much detail at all.

  Maggie fell back against her pillow, wishing she could somehow shut out the memory. That night seemed like only yesterday.

  They didn’t let her see him. They didn’t let her say sorry.

  Sorry for being a brat.

  Sorry for the time she’d faked bruises on her arm with purple eye shadow, telling everyone he’d given her a horsey bite.

  Sorry for writing I hate you in indelible ink on the wall above his bed one day.

  They didn’t let Maggie say goodbye, even though Michael’s death changed her life forever.

  Her sixteenth birthday had started out predictably enough—predictable for Maggie who, for the last three years, had looked after a house, a father and a brother. Homework was always her first priority after each school day, followed by the chooks, the dogs, the laundry and household chores. How three people could dirty so many clothes was beyond her understanding. Every evening she’d cook, usually for two—her and her dad—as Michael was … Well, he was a restless teenage boy and who could control them? Her father couldn’t; everyone’s favourite minister was too preoccupied fitting his life around the needs of his congregation. Nothing left for family.

  If only he’d been there the day that big brown snake had decided to seek respite from the burning summer heat, coiled up under the old laundry copper on the back veranda of the Manse. It took a sleepy snake to strike down the otherwise indomitable Mary Lindeman two weeks before Maggie turned thirteen, the keystone of the Lindeman family snatched away. Maggie was desperately sad, her father sadder, while Michael—two years older—took a bull-by-the-horns approach to life. If her father even noticed, he did nothing to curtail his son’s unruliness. Their mother had been the only one who could control Michael and she was gone.

  Maggie missed everything about her mother.

  Mary Lindeman was a kisser. Good morning, goodnight, hello, goodbye, she was forever kissing someone, adopting the European double-cheek air kiss thing because she’d dreamed of going to Italy one day. The sound of Mary’s soprano voice would fill the house, her strange medley of church hymns, Italian opera and Broadway musicals, audible several houses down. When she died, the loss of this mother’s love had left her family with the most impossible emptiness and silence. Maggie’s father, too lost in his own grief, struggled to meet his clergyman’s duties, let alone domestic chores. That’s when nurturing and housekeeping responsibilities fell to Maggie. After a quiet dinner each night the Rev would silently, mournfully, but methodically wipe as Maggie stacked the dish rack. Sometimes Maggie tried to hold off serving dinner in the hope her brother would lob with his hungry hangers-on, even though stalling usually meant singed or soggy food. Maggie didn’t care. She craved noise and the chaotic clamour that Michael and his mates brought into the house and her humdrum world.

  Her sixteenth birthday fell on a Sunday. Michael’s friends always came over on weekends when the Reverend, occupied with his religious duties in the adjacent church, didn’t have time to worry, or the inclination to care about what sort of mischief his son might be up to at home. The all-male invasion
took over every chair in the living room where they watched ‘Wide World of Sports’, swigged on cans of beer and Pepsi and ate Cheezels straight from the box. Pesky younger sisters—birthday girl or not—were definitely barred. It wasn’t that Maggie was interested in her poser brother’s chorus of swearing and farting as he carried on like a dork in front of his mates. Michael was not the reason she wanted to hang around.

  If Maggie could have wished for anything that birthday, it was that sixteen was old enough to drink beer, make noise and get up to no good—especially with that boy she liked, that brooding mate of Michael’s, the one her father labelled reckless, but who always acknowledged Maggie with a smile and silent g’day when his mates weren’t looking. Michael and his friends were loud and blokey, constantly making mischief around the town, up late, playing drinking games by the river and taking girls to Cedar Cutters Gorge.

  Yes, even he did that, although she chose not to believe everything she heard. Such shenanigans always made the rounds of the playground and no one dared dob on the cool kids like Michael and his mates.

  Maggie didn’t want to be cool as much as she did loud. Wasn’t life meant to be big and colourful and exciting? It seemed not in Calingarry Crossing, especially at night when country town silence did the opposite of soothe Maggie.

  Maggie’s sixteenth had been no different to any other Sunday. After scoffing down dinner the boys left the house, ejected by the Rev whose tolerance for tomfoolery—any kind of happiness—died along with Mary. From behind her louvred bedroom windows, Maggie watched her brother and his friends go, their drunken attempts to hush each other making more noise. As usual, she stifled her giggle behind a hand to remain undetected. But tonight—maybe because it was her birthday—he turned around and looked up towards her window. Then, walking backwards, he doffed his hat and promptly tripped, falling flat on his bottom. Maggie had fallen on her bed, burying her laughter in the pillow. When she looked again, the boys were gone, the night was silent and she was alone.