Simmering Season

by Jenn J. McLeod

  ‘You saying I have some growing to do or that I’m annoying the whatever it was out of you?’

  ‘The bejesus. Just bear with me,’ Ethne continued. ‘Not every barnacle is bad, just like not every oyster will form a pearl. Sometimes an irritation is just that—a blasted annoyance. Take old Barnacle Bill. They don’t get any more annoying than him. But he’s a good barnacle. You, girl, need to put all that rubbing everyone the wrong way to good use and let that pearl show what I know is inside you somewhere.’

  The old lady poked a chubby index finger into Fiona’s chest, and as hard as she tried not to show this old nag her tears, Fiona couldn’t hold them back. No one had ever spoken to her like that and got away with it. Now she didn’t know if it was the berating or the kind words causing the steady trail of tears over her cheeks.

  What she did know was that she’d crossed the line yesterday. She’d been angry, but her intentions had been good—helping Noah come out to his mother. If anyone knew how secrets could tear a family apart, Fiona did. Unfortunately, things didn’t go to plan. The little dose of confidence she’d popped, the small pink one Luke said would loosen her up, had loosened her lips a little too much.

  ‘Do you think Noah will ever talk to me again?’

  ‘When he finds out what you’ve done, I guess you’ll know. Maggie’s upset, but I doubt she’ll be broaching the subject with him. She’s smart enough to know it’s up to him to want to tell her. If I were you, I’d be thinking carefully about how you’re going to get over breaking a confidence. If that’s what you’ve done. In a way, I hope what you said isn’t true.’

  Fiona sat rigid. ‘I’d hardly make something like that up. It’s true all right. I figured if I was Noah—’

  ‘Bingo!’ Ethne did a little victory clap.

  ‘What?’

  ‘That’s it right there, isn’t it, love? You just said “If you were Noah …” I say, if you were Noah, you’d be happy. You’re about as spoilt as they come, but Noah has all those intangible things you want.’ Ethne nodded knowingly. ‘I’ve lived hand to mouth for years, but you know what? I wouldn’t change a thing. I have what money can’t buy right here in this town. I’m thinking you’ve got everything money can buy, but it’s all the other stuff that will make you happy. Now, lucky for you, Noah is like his mother. That doesn’t mean they won’t both be wary of you in the future. You’ll need to earn their trust again, and money and looks won’t cut it around here.’

  ‘What do I do?’

  ‘Don’t ask me. Talk to your grandmother—or maybe Phillip. Those intangibles you want are right in front of you. Open your eyes and shuck that heart of yours, Fiona-girl.’

  32

  Maggie

  Today should have been another ordinary day for Maggie. The reunion was long over, the fair day decorations and street flags finally taken down, and plans were afoot for the end-of-year muck-up day pranks—a tradition and a rite of passage for those students finishing Year 12. For many, the milestone meant an end to their formal education. Some students would get a job locally or in one of the bigger regional towns, and some might stay to work the family property. But today’s farmers faced a new challenge, with children leaving the land in search of a life without the hardship and heartache. What parent didn’t want that for their child? Often they’re simply torn—disappointed at the prospect of one day losing their land, their livelihood, and everything they’d planted and fed and watched grow.

  What Maggie woke to today would be far from ordinary—her life, her dreams, her future changed with news so out of the blue. She must have managed some shuteye; she remembered crying herself to sleep several times. When her head refused to stop replaying Fiona’s words, Maggie had tried counting sheep. When sheep didn’t work, she’d tried counting down through ‘Ten Green Bottles’. When that failed, she’d tried to count the number of ways she could inflict pain on that monster of a girl. She’d lamented her wasted emotions and scoffed at stupid praying mantis dreams. Then panic, confusion and uncertainty took their place until Maggie reminded herself this wasn’t about her feelings.

  This was about Noah.

  Just thinking about having to face the day made her cry again as she dragged the pillow over her head to avoid the glimpse of morning sun and the relentless cry of the storm bird—the cuckoo that seemed to have taken up residence in one of the main street fig trees. All night it had screeched, warning rain was on its way. Fed up, exhausted and afraid, the thought of her son in his room at this very minute made Maggie cry and cry and cry. She wasn’t angry that he’d chosen to confide in Fiona, just hurt. Then she asked herself, would she even have known what to do or say had Noah told her himself? How had she not realised before? And how could she help him when she didn’t fully understand this herself? More importantly, how was she going to protect him in the future?

  For one mad moment Maggie thought about picking up the telephone and calling her husband. Being able to share the parenting load at a time like this, with something as sensitive as this, might allow the knot in her stomach to loosen. As it was, she felt as though Fiona’s announcement had kicked her in the guts. She couldn’t face Brian’s neediness right now, though. Not even the thought of the old mare waiting for her daily treat could hurry her out of bed this morning. No time to feel sorry for the bloody horse. Maggie was too busy feeling sorry for herself.

  ‘Don’t say a word,’ Maggie warned when she saw the thin arch of one raised Ethne eyebrow, and with the woman’s hips taking up the width of the kitchen door, there was no escaping. ‘I know. I look like crap and I have a million things to do today.’

  ‘Awright, love, don’t get worked up. Relax. Cory’s got the bar covered this morning.’

  ‘Has Noah surfaced yet?’

  ‘As if. In his room still, is my guess. Have you talked to him?’

  ‘Not yet. I need time. I don’t think any of this has truly sunk in,’ Maggie said, filling a glass with water from the tap before dropping in a Berocca tablet. Almost immediately, the liquid turned orange, the effervescence slowly bubbling to the surface, mimicking the tension bubbling up inside Maggie as she sensed Ethne’s continuing glare, made up of two squinty eyes and pencilled eyebrows in pronounced arches that gave her a constantly questioning look.

  Trying her best to act normal, whatever normal was now, Maggie raised the fizzing liquid to her mouth briefly, letting the bubbles dance on the tip of her nose.

  She couldn’t drink.

  She couldn’t swallow.

  She couldn’t think.

  Her brain was Berocca. Fizzy one minute, flat the next.

  ‘Does putting it off make me a bad mother?’

  ‘No, love, it makes you a wise one.’

  ‘A wise woman would know what to do,’ she said, the glass landing heavily on the stainless steel bench. ‘I don’t know whether to be scared or sad.’

  ‘Love, there’s not much for you to do. If there is any doing to be done, it’s up to Noah I ’spect.’

  ‘You know, all night I asked myself why Fiona would make something like that up.’

  She had to be lying had been the mantra at one point last night. It wasn’t possible that Maggie wouldn’t know that about her son. She was Noah’s mother. Even if she didn’t notice the signs, he’d tell her, wouldn’t he? Even before Noah came along, Maggie had known the kind of relationship she wanted with her child, and it was going to be different to her own father–daughter relationship. Mary Lindeman had been the conduit in their family, holding everyone together, keeping them all travelling in the same direction. When she died, the gap—make that chasm—between father and daughter had widened to make what was already a sad situation worse and even more untenable after Michael’s death. That would never happen in Maggie’s family and definitely not between mother and son. Maggie might struggle to influence her husband, but she could always talk to Noah and vice-versa.

  A young Noah had been impossible to shut up. How many dinners had gone cold while he ch
attered away about things he’d done at school, or what he and his dad had got up to on weekends while Maggie had worked?

  Fifteen had been the beginning of the silent years. Was that significant? Maggie wondered. Should she have acknowledged those silences somehow, rather than passing them off as growing pains? Maybe silence had been Noah’s way of asking her for help and she’d totally misread the cue.

  This situation, for want of another word, demanded careful consideration. That was the line Maggie was going with this morning. Maggie couldn’t reclaim the years she’d lost being a working mum. There was no way she wanted to risk losing any more by alienating her son; nor was she prepared to lose him to his father. Brian had enjoyed Noah’s early years while Maggie had held down two part-time jobs. This was her time, their time—together.

  She desperately wanted to do the right thing and it would be so much easier if Noah had talked to her, but perhaps Ethne was right and it had to be his timing, his way. Maggie’s first instinct was to go to her son, wrap him tight in her over-protective wings and tell him he would never be alone.

  If only that were true.

  No relationship ever guaranteed constant companionship; look at her marriage. Her thoughts shifted to the homosexual couple who’d lived in the downstairs flat and how, one Christmas, they’d contrived relationships and told lies to appease family. Hadn’t she and Brian made fun of them over breakfast the next day? Had Noah heard his parents? Had he been in the room at the time?

  ‘Oh God.’ Maggie slumped into the chair and buried her head in her hands, knowing her son’s life, everything she’d wished for him and herself—marriage, babies, the whole fairy tale—would never happen.

  Chink!

  Yet another tiny piece of her heart.

  ‘Oh Ethne, look at me. I’m crying. I’ve been crying all night. Why, for goodness sake? He’s not dead. He’s just … just …’

  ‘He’s gay, Maggie.’

  ‘Shhh!’ Maggie peered across the dining area towards the bar room. ‘Not so loud.’

  ‘You gotta say it, love.’

  ‘It’s not that,’ she lied. Saying it aloud might make it real. But it was real, wasn’t it? ‘Oh God, I feel so useless, so sad, so wrong.’

  ‘Wrong?’

  ‘I keep telling myself that none of this has happened to me. Poor Noah. What has he been going through all this time, on his own, because he couldn’t talk to me? Even if he had I’m not sure I would have known what to say.’

  ‘Course you would’ve.’

  Maggie’s head shook. Was there a handbook? Could she Google it? Isn’t that what everyone did for answers these days? Did she confront her son or wait for him to tell her?

  If he told her.

  ‘I don’t know what to do. Please, Ethne, tell me what I’m supposed to do.’

  Ethne met her gaze with a tilt of the head. ‘Maybe try to not over-think things. You’re a natural carer. It’ll come to you.’

  ‘You don’t seem surprised, Ethne.’

  ‘I’ve got my nothing surprises me eyebrows on today, love. That’s all,’ she chirped, winking with one eye and then the other so the painted arches danced up and down.

  Maggie laughed. It was a sound she hadn’t expected to hear from her mouth today.

  Or ever again!

  ‘You’ll be right, love. So will Noah, you’ll see,’ Ethne said, fitting a filter paper in the coffee machine.

  ‘And what if I do leave it up to him to approach me and he doesn’t? Plus, I don’t understand why he would tell Fiona. I mean, she’s not even family.’

  Ethne stopped what she was doing to look at Maggie. ‘You ever told something to someone when you were young hoping they’d do the telling for you?’

  Had I? Maggie wondered.

  The first thought was her clandestine meetings on Sunday after church when she’d stay behind and meet Dan behind the big fig tree. The rendezvous became a kind of ritual. At the same time every Sunday the ritual would begin with the last of the congregation leaving the church grounds, sometimes driven away by Dan imitating that annoying storm bird cry and throwing berries at Maggie’s feet. Like a game, their meeting was something she looked forward to so much that she’d forget about not liking her church organ duties. The joyful anticipation of seeing Dan Ireland replaced the melancholy she felt every service, each time her fingers punched out the same hymns her mother had played on the very same keyboard. Maggie remembered telling her brother that she thought Dan was cute. Michael had laughed and told her to rack off. Maybe she’d been hoping her brother would tell Dan for her, saving her the embarrassment. Perhaps Ethne had a point. Perhaps it was the same thing.

  ‘Maybe I did,’ she finally confessed.

  ‘I can’t imagine how hard it must be for a boy to come to terms with such a thing, let alone tell his parents. Why not go with that explanation so you can stop beating yourself up?’

  ‘But if he knows I know and I don’t say anything … How does that look?’

  Ethne dusted coffee grounds from her hands on the tea towel she routinely secured, along with her muffin top waistline, with her apron tie, then patted the top of Maggie’s hand where it rested on the counter.

  ‘Love, if you want my advice, what’s best right now is to let him see that nothing’s changed. That life is going on like always. Constancy and unconditional love are probably more reassuring than any words. Let him come to you.’

  ‘What if he doesn’t?’

  ‘It might take a while, and it might be in his own way when he does, but he’ll let you know. Until then he’s still Noah. He’s still your boy. That’s what matters.’

  Maggie had to believe Ethne was right. She had nothing else, no alternative solution, no clue how to handle this delicate situation. Besides, the advice made sense. He was still Noah, still her son.

  ‘Life won’t be easy. I wanted so much more for him.’

  ‘That’s only natural, love, but think about it this way. You’ve raised Noah to feel so secure and so self-confident that he’s able to make a life-changing decision and feel comfortable.’

  ‘Not so comfortable and secure he can tell his mother, huh?’ Disappointment seeped into her voice.

  ‘Come on, buck up, my poor sleep-deprived thing and drink this.’ Ethne slipped a coffee under her nose.

  ‘Caffeine? You’re giving me caffeine?’

  ‘My herbal brews have their limits. Right now you’re needing the big guns and a little distraction maybe.’

  ‘Distraction?’

  ‘Something to take your mind off your troubles, hopefully in a good way. This next bit of news will either make your day or not.’

  Maggie braced. ‘Now what?’

  ‘That Dan chappy called again this morning. I told him you weren’t here.’

  ‘Oh,’ Maggie said.

  ‘That’s it? Oh?’ Piercing powder-blue eyes, the palest—almost spectral-like—that Maggie had ever seen, homed in on her. ‘Awright, love, what gives? Come on, spill the beans.’

  ‘There’s nothing to spill.’

  ‘Is that right? So this chappy is … What? Picking random names from the phonebook and calling to get his rocks off? I s’pose he just happens to have freakishly picked your name a couple of times now. Either that or he loves the sound of my voice.’

  ‘Dan and I sort of caught up at the reunion.’

  ‘Sorta good, or sorta not so good?’

  ‘Sorta married.’

  ‘Oh,’ Ethne mimicked. ‘This Dan got a last name?’

  ‘Ireland. Dan Ireland.’

  Ethne’s face looked like a goldfish at feeding time, all boggle-eyed, mouth gaping. ‘Charlie’s son?’

  So, the long-time barmaid obviously remembered the troubled son of Charlie Ireland, all the hullabaloo surrounding Michael’s death and Maggie’s teenage heartbreak.

  ‘I remember someone having quite the crush,’ she said.

  ‘Michael’s accident put an end to that, though, didn’t it?’

&n
bsp; ‘Not your choice, if I recall correctly.’

  ‘There was no choice.’

  ‘There’s always a choice. A person just needs to be strong enough to make the one that’s best.’

  ‘I did.’

  ‘I meant a choice that’s best for you, not what everyone expects.’

  ‘What are you getting at?’

  ‘You are the most obliging woman I know, Maggie. Wouldn’t hurt you to follow your son’s lead and start making decisions that are right for you. Bugger everyone else. Be selfish for a bit. When was the last time you did something because you wanted to do it, when you wanted to do it?’

  ‘Hmm, well, when you put it that way,’ Maggie said, ‘I was thinking of making myself scarce today. Thought I’d pop into Saddleton and spend some time with Dad. I need a good chat. Preferably one where no one chats me back.’

  ‘Aw gee, love, I’m sorry,’ Ethne apologised. ‘Not sure I can cover you right now. Maybe next week.’

  ‘Oh, of course, that’s no problem. I can wait.’

  ‘Bingo!’ Ethne whooped so loud Maggie’s heart skipped. ‘Wrong answer, love. The correct answer is—repeat after me—“Ethne, I’m the boss and I’m taking some much needed time out and leaving you in charge.” Okay?’

  Maggie laughed. ‘Point taken. So Ethne …’ She cleared her throat, crossed her arms and started. ‘I’m the boss and—’

  ‘Yeah, yeah, you got it. Good girl. Now get going. Cory and I have the place covered. Everything here’ll be fine. By the time you get home the place will be back to normal. Say hello to the old bugger from me.’

  ‘Will do. And Ethne? Thanks. Not sure what I’d do without you.’

  ‘Me either.’

  33

  ‘I’m late today, Roslyn. Sorry.’

  ‘Late?’ The nurse grinned, looked at her watch then back at Maggie now almost running. ‘Slow down, Maggie, I don’t think your dad will notice.’

  Maggie halted, slammed a hand against her chest, stared. ‘Bad day?’