Simmering Season

by Jenn J. McLeod

  And I had to like the most unpopular one in town.

  Sara’s voice dropped to a whisper. ‘You know I thought about Will sometimes … I mean while I was married to Joel. I know that sounds wrong but I can remember imagining the two of us together while Joel … You know?’

  Sara’s cheeks grew red while Maggie feigned shock, claiming she most definitely did not know what Sara was suggesting. What Maggie didn’t confess to was that she’d done the same. On those nights of perfunctory sex with Brian, she’d spiced up the experience with thoughts of another—the boy who’d captured, then broken her young heart when he ran away from Calingarry Crossing. An invitation had arrived by mail a few years later. Tracy Rose, Maggie’s best friend from school, was getting married. The boy’s name …?

  Dan Ireland. That was one sure-fire way of dousing any future fantasies.

  Maggie fidgeted with the ties on her black apron, crossing them at the small of her back before bringing them around her middle. ‘Sara, you and Will were meant to be, obviously.’

  ‘Sometimes I wonder if I’d only been brave back in school, who knows what might have been. If Will and I had got together then …’ That made the petite blonde smile as she rinsed cups, yelling over the running water. ‘One thing I know for sure is that coming back to Calingarry Crossing was the best thing that ever happened to me.’

  It might have taken twenty years, but Sara’s return to town as part of the Dandelion House inheritance had given her not only Will but the children she’d always wanted. She was a natural at being a mum, too, and coped amazingly well with an instant family, a paraplegic husband, a small business, the ever-present threat of breast cancer, and an overprotective, pain in the butt mother-in-law—all of which made Maggie’s pot of problems seem small by comparison.

  As they put away the cups and wiped the tables, Maggie remembered how lucky she was in so many ways, but especially giving birth to a healthy baby boy. The minute the midwife had put Noah in her arms, the enormous responsibility of caring for another human had hit her with such force. Both she and Brian were besotted instantly and totally.

  Every day they would play the same game. Propping their baby son in front of a mirror, one of them would start by saying, ‘He looks like you.’

  ‘No, he looks like you.’

  ‘No, you.’

  ‘Na, huh, ah! Definitely you.’

  Then Brian would start coochee-cooing and working their son’s arms and legs like a puppeteer until Noah was laughing in his own gurgly baby way. Before long the three of them would be dancing in front of the mirror, giggling like a manic marionette family.

  They were crazy.

  Crazy in love.

  Noah became the reason for everything: to stay home, to go out, to save, to spend, to get up, to sleep in—all three of them in the double bed. Sex in the morning became a thing of the past, eventually stopping altogether. Strangely, it didn’t really bother Maggie. By then, even if Brian had been capable when he’d slipped between the sheets in the early hours of Saturday and Sunday mornings after his gig, the lingering stench of smoke and booze that not even a hot shower could wash away had been the biggest turn-off for Maggie. During the week, after working all day, the last thing she wanted was to make love, especially knowing she had to get up early for a job she hated while her husband and baby stayed cuddled up in bed.

  Hadn’t she missed making love at all?

  Yes. She missed feeling beautiful and sexy and adored.

  Did she miss sex now?

  Even more—and for all the same reasons—given she’d soon reach a milestone birthday.

  ‘Guess I’d better go,’ Sara said. ‘Off to the monster-in-law’s house tonight. After that I might take Will home and—’

  ‘Okay, okay,’ Maggie laughed, waving her hands in the air. ‘I get the picture. Now scoot.’

  Maggie finished checking the beer taps, did a couple of test pours and was loading the glass-washer when she caught sight of her reflection in the pitted old Perkins Stout mirror hanging behind the bar. She wasn’t too bad for her age, although it wouldn’t hurt to pay a little more attention to her skin. With no one to impress except a bar-full of blokes, and given she was married—information that Ethne had quickly disseminated to anyone with amorous notions about the new not-bad-looking female publican—Maggie saw little benefit in wasting time and money on lotions, potions and perfumes designed to keep a woman youthful and radiant. No product in a bottle could do that anyway. No product on the planet had such power. All any of them did was allow the glow of a woman in love to shine on the outside. That’s what she told herself. With Maggie basically celibate anyway, left to her own … ahem … devices and supported by a rather limited imagination given she’d only ever been with Brian, there wasn’t too much glowing of late.

  While her beauty regime may have taken a back seat over the past couple of years, both her body and mind were more active than ever. If she’d needed any reminding about the importance of keeping fit, visiting the nursing home did the job with its hallways echoing the creaks and regrets of worn bones and jaded minds. This morning’s centenary planning meeting had meant missing her morning run, so no morning scraps for the old mare that had seemed particularly frisky yesterday.

  ‘Maybe being put out to pasture wasn’t so bad,’ Maggie grumbled as she lugged the tray of washed glasses from the main bar to the dining room. ‘Bloody horse has probably seen more action than me lately.’

  ‘Did you say something, Maggie?’ an overly cheery Fiona called out from the back corner behind two tables dragged together and covered in papers. ‘Sorry I missed the meeting.’

  ‘Oh, yes, ah …’ Maggie bustled, tongue-tied by both her personal muttering and Fiona’s over-the-top brightness. Maggie’s interest piqued. The girl was up to something.

  ‘What have you got there?’ she called from the kitchen, adding hot water to eke out the last of the filter coffee from the morning’s meeting.

  ‘Noah and I are working on something for the reunion.’

  ‘Oh?’ she said, managing to fit a mountain of concern into a single syllable. There was definitely an unusual level of enthusiasm in Fiona’s attitude, as if someone had told her Myer was setting up shop in the main street just for her. ‘What sort of something, exactly?’

  ‘A memory wall. Catchy name, don’t you think? It’s a photographic retrospective.’

  ‘A retro—?’

  ‘A retrospective,’ she said again, assuming Maggie hadn’t understood. ‘I’m very good at visual displays, you know.’

  I’ll add that to the list, Maggie mused, burying her grin in her coffee cup and walking over to examine the myriad photographs on the table. She recognised some old class pictures, the kind in which tall students like Maggie, Poppy and Tracy found themselves standing in the middle at the back, a position that only served to accentuate their towering statures, thereby confirming for the entire school that they truly were freaks of nature. The petite, pretty ones like Amber and Sara got to sit front and centre: straight-backed, hands on knees, with butter-wouldn’t-melt smiles.

  ‘Where did you get all these?’

  ‘Cheryl gave them to me. We’ve had a good couple of days talking about Mum and stuff.’

  ‘Cheryl?’ Maggie had to stop for a minute to realise Cheryl was the name of Fiona’s grandmother. It had taken Maggie twelve months to start calling Mrs Bailey by her first name, and only after she had insisted.

  ‘These are all Mum’s from when she was growing up here.’ Fiona poked the pictures around on the table, a trace of sentiment in her voice cutting through the forced sophistication Maggie was used to hearing. ‘Naturally, I didn’t know they existed, on account of I didn’t know this town existed. Or, for that matter, that I had a grandmother.’

  ‘You have a lovely grandmother and I’m glad the two of you are getting to know each other. It’s been hard on her …’ Maggie let the sentence trail off. She didn’t want to get into a discussion with Fiona about
the hardships Cheryl Bailey had overcome. ‘Spending time together is what you both need. Remember, she didn’t know much about you either.’

  ‘Whatever.’ Fiona flapped a dismissive hand, sentiment squashed, stomped on and ground to nothingness like a spent cigarette. ‘I figured if the school is a hundred years old there must be heaps of stuff hanging around. Not sure why no one else thought to arrange a display.’

  The girl’s arrogance was starting to get up Maggie’s nose, but she had a point. Why hadn’t anyone thought about a pictorial account of the school’s history before now? Why hadn’t Maggie? She could tell Miss I’m qualified that she, Maggie Lindeman, was a qualified photographer. A single TAFE term 20,000 moons ago counted, didn’t it?

  ‘I might have some photos to add.’ Maggie didn’t elaborate. She certainly didn’t tell Fiona her box of photo albums was always the first thing she packed each time the family moved. Even now the precious memories were tucked carefully away in a cupboard under the stairs, a mere fifteen paces away, always close to the door in case she should ever need to risk life and limb rushing back into a burning building to rescue them.

  A catalogue of albums scrolled through her mind: one brag book for every year of Noah’s life, one wedding album and one box of miscellaneous pictures from her youth, which wasn’t bad given the family didn’t own a camera until Maggie’s twelfth birthday. Up until then, friends had been delegated the responsibility of capturing all those special family moments.

  Maggie’s photograph collection was everything: her memory, her companion, her sanity on those long nights alone lamenting her choices—choices that had always considered someone other than herself. Every now and then she would pick a random album, take it to the hospital and find a picture to reignite the spark in her father’s face. Memory was a gift, unappreciated until it was gone.

  ‘I’ll run the idea of a display by Jennifer.’ Maggie could already picture the mad scribbling and tsk-ing. ‘Maybe she can tell you how to go about collecting some more things for the display. Coffee?’ she called on her way to the kitchen, her own cup calling out for a refill.

  ‘No, thank you. But I was kind of hoping you and I could go through these pictures of Mum’s together. You can tell me who some of the people are.’

  ‘I could try.’ Maggie returned with a cup half-filled and peered down at the array of photographs. ‘Not sure how good I’ll be at remembering names though. While it was a small school in our day …’ God, how ancient did that make her sound? ‘There were still cliques and I definitely wasn’t in the same circle as your mother.’ Maggie left out the bit about being older with a failing memory.

  ‘You mean not as …’ Fiona fashioned quotation marks with her fingers, ‘popular with the boys.’

  Maggie didn’t respond, or tell Fiona a door in the girls’ toilets had chronicled Amber’s popularity. The scribble she remembered was something like: Amber Bailey thinks safe sex means doing it where she won’t get sprung. Poor Amber. She couldn’t help being beautiful. Her kind of beauty brought popularity and expectations, but also resentment. If there’d been any truth to some of the school scuttlebutt, even Maggie’s brother had taken Amber to Cedar Cutters Gorge at least once.

  ‘What I mean, Fiona, is that your mother and I weren’t really friends at school.’

  ‘Too bad.’ She shrugged.

  Fiona was trying not to care and as annoying as the girl was with her fresh face and obsessive hair flicking, her fingering of the old photographs suggested her bravado might be a smokescreen. She suddenly seemed like the puppy in the pound with a wagging tail—unhappy, but hopeful.

  As if on cue, Jackpot barked. One bark at this hour could only be one person—the delivery driver from the brewery who liked to think of himself as a comedian.

  ‘Milko!’ came the voice from the kitchen door.

  ‘Fiona, that’s my keg delivery.’ Maggie was about to apologise for not being able to help with the photo identification when guilt tugged at her conscience. ‘I guess after dinner tonight I can take a look. It’s Ethne’s night off so I’ll be working the bar, but mid-week we’re generally quiet. We can try then if you like.’

  What harm could come from looking at old photos?

  16

  Maggie had been spot-on with her prediction of a quiet evening. Nights like this made staying awake more of a chore. Fiona would be a distraction at least. Two regulars were currently propped at one end of the bar and a couple of long-haul truckers were passing time with a game of pool at the table in the back corner. She delivered their beers and on her way back stopped to fix the black velveteen curtain that concealed the tiny corner podium. The small stage had once supported professional performers. The dust-covered pianola adjacent to the stage still worked, providing the occasional drunk with an opportunity to accompany him or herself singing—usually too loudly and almost always out of tune.

  At the bar Fiona busily sorted photographs into two separate piles: good and not so good. Some were old Polaroid instant photos, faded from age, their ghostly subjects unrecognisable. Maggie had so wanted one of those cameras that whirred and clunked as the gadget poked out a tongue of glossy black film. The magic of those self-developing pictures had helped Maggie fall in love with photography.

  ‘Good grief.’ She picked up the picture of her school dance, pausing at the shoulder pads and the sea of chiffon.

  ‘Whatchya got there, girlie?’ Barney said from a few bar stools away. ‘Looks like thirsty work.’ He leaned across the bar and up-ended his empty glass onto the tray of dirties—his standard ready-for-a-refill ritual.

  ‘Looking at some old school photos of Amber Bailey’s. Have you met Amber’s daughter yet? This is Fiona,’ Maggie explained as she cocked the handle on Barney’s brew of choice, half filling a fresh schooner glass before banging it twice on the bar towel to settle the frothy white head.

  ‘Thought as much,’ Barney said, giving the girl the once-over. ‘Heard a pretty young thing had blown into town. You certainly got your mother’s looks.’

  Admiring the perfect pour, Maggie placed the beer in front of Barney and winked. ‘You best behave or I’ll be telling Ethne what you get up to on her night off.’

  Fiona swivelled on her bar stool to look the old codger straight in the eye. ‘Do you really think I look like my mother?’

  ‘Bloody oath! Need a bit more meat on them bones, but other than that …’

  ‘And do I look like anyone else you might know from around town?’ she asked. ‘My father maybe?’

  Caution crumpled Barney’s brow, telling anyone who bothered to see beyond his town soak act, as Maggie did, that he was wiser than he let on. A quick swig and a swipe of his mouth with the back of his wrist was all Barney needed to deliver his answer.

  ‘Can’t say I know too much about that, missy.’

  ‘Yeah? Funny that. Me either,’ Fiona muttered and huffed before turning back to the photo spread, picking a new pile and painstakingly examining each picture.

  Maggie sensed danger. She formed her next words carefully.

  ‘Fiona, I gather this interest in old photos isn’t about a display for the reunion.’

  The girl didn’t answer.

  ‘Have you come to Calingarry Crossing thinking your father will be here?’

  ‘Would that be so wrong?’ she asked without looking up.

  Maggie eyed the room for any impending orders before lifting the servery and stepping through to the other side of the bar. She dragged a stool next to Fiona’s and hooked a heel of her shoe on the foot rail, perching one butt-cheek on the edge of the seat, leaning close so she could speak without anyone hearing. ‘Would it be wrong?’ she repeated. ‘Yes and no. The real answer to that question depends on why you’re looking. It was all such a long time ago.’

  ‘I think I know how long ago it was,’ Fiona replied in a sulky tone.

  ‘Are you sure you want to go down that path so soon after your mum’s passing? It’s just that you might be sett
ing yourself up for more disappointment, that’s all I’m saying. That and … well, there’s something to be said about focusing on the future rather than the past.’

  More silence.

  More sulking—at least that’s what Maggie thought was happening as she found herself staring at the small stripe of strawberry blonde regrowth in Fiona’s hair, barely a shade or two different from the expensive-looking foils. The girl was clearly her mother; au naturel was never good enough for Amber either, no matter how well she wore it.

  ‘Have you thought about Phillip? How difficult this might be for him. Your mother’s barely—’

  ‘Those two lied. They’ve lied to me my whole life.’ Fiona looked up finally, her eyes, cheeks and nose tinged red—the first signs of a sob held in for too long. ‘Do you know how I found out Phillip wasn’t my real father?’

  ‘I’m not sure I—’

  ‘They were having an argument, that’s how,’ Fiona blurted. ‘Mum, Phillip and Granddad. That was the day it happened. They didn’t know I was there. Nothing new about that, though.’ She huffed, sniffed back the sob, toughened up. ‘I stood in the hallway listening to every word. Then Mum saw me. She said my name and …’ Fiona clicked her fingers, letting her hand fall back onto bare legs with a smack. ‘She died. Just like that.’

  Fiona was trying so hard to not care, but Maggie saw through the façade and immediately felt sorry for the girl.

  ‘I understand you’re upset about your mum dying,’ Maggie said.

  ‘Not really,’ Fiona protested. ‘It’s not as if she was around much when I was growing up anyway. Even when she was there, she wasn’t.’

  No amount of bravado could stop the tears that finally tipped over and rolled down her cheeks, washing a faint trail through the mineral makeup powder that did an amazing job of masking her freckles.