Simmering Season

by Jenn J. McLeod

  After a little while, Noah said, ‘I’m angry.’

  So am I, Maggie wanted to say. She nodded instead. ‘If it helps, try to think of your father as addicted to fame, then think of the rest as the result of that addiction.’

  ‘You’re doing it again, Mum.’

  ‘Doing what?’

  ‘Protecting him. I accused you once of not caring enough about Dad.’

  ‘I was protecting you, Noah.’

  ‘I know that now. Love you, Mum.’

  Noah was smiling, his head cocked to one side, eyeing Maggie.

  ‘What’s that look for?’

  ‘I was about to tell you to chill, but you kind of are. I’m glad.’

  Maggie felt her face flush as she recalled her dunking in the river with Dan cooling her, then the way his touch heated her again.

  ‘Don’t change the subject, Noah. Where was I?’

  ‘Telling me not to do something just to be famous.’

  ‘That’s important, Noah. Do it because you love it, but don’t let it rule your life.’

  ‘Mum, I’m not going to end up like him.’

  ‘I know you’re not, buddy. And do you want to know how I’m so sure?’ Maggie took a deep breath. Mother and son had skirted around the edges of the subject, testing the water, dipping a toe every now and then. ‘I know you’re not like your father because you know who you are. More importantly, you’re brave enough to be that person. You’ve chosen a life and a path that will have many challenges, but I’m here to help. And you’ve taught me something in the process.’ She stopped short of confessing she’d chosen the easy path when she’d been his age. ‘That’s how I know you’ll never be like him. Something else I know, too. You’ll never, never, have to be sorry or apologise to anyone for being you. Okay?’

  ‘Mum?’ Noah said, in such a way Maggie braced herself. She watched his hand slowly reaching over, resting on her cheek. She pressed her face against the warm palm, closed her eyes and …

  ‘Ouch!’ Noah had tugged her ear.

  ‘Am I ear-i-tating you?’

  ‘Hey, you little bugger!’ Maggie launched herself off her seat and for a few exhausting minutes chased him around the dinner table, like they’d done when he was young.

  Flopping into the seat, she laughed until tears rolled down her face. They were going to be fine. Talking would get easier for them both. There was still a long way to go, and she remained scared for Noah and disappointed for herself knowing she’d miss out on a wedding and grandchildren. But they were her dreams, not Noah’s. Her son had to travel his own path. She simply had to be there for him in case he crashed.

  ‘I’m here, Mrs Henkler,’ Cory said as he tied the bar apron around his waist. ‘Ethne asked me to do a shift this afternoon.’

  ‘Oh, okay, thanks. And Cory, you can call me Maggie.’

  ‘No worries. Will do, Mrs Henkler.’

  Maggie smiled just as her mobile rang out. ‘Good. I’ll leave you with it then,’ she said while glancing at the caller ID on the phone. Her smile faded.

  Brian had been worse than ever since Noah’s Sydney trip, calling several times a day. Maggie had stopped answering, knowing each call was costing money. Sometimes he left a text or voice message, mostly soppy apologies for something he’d said or hadn’t said, done or hadn’t done. This morning, she had given in and pressed the answer button and his name came out on a long puff of exasperation.

  ‘Brian.’

  ‘Maggs, Magpie, please.’ He launched into his rant as if picking up from where the last one ended. ‘I don’t want to be that guy,’ he said, as Maggie made her way hurriedly back to the residence. ‘The one who could have been something if only he’d stuck with it. You don’t understand, Maggs. You never have.’

  ‘I’m tired of you telling me I don’t understand,’ she almost growled into the phone. ‘I understand, Brian. I do. And I feel so sorry for you and all the other people hanging on to that tiny thread of hope by putting your fate in the hands of strangers. Noah and I are not going to do this any more.’ Brian tried to speak. She cut him off. She had to say this now. ‘How I’ve hung on to the dream of getting our family back together the way we were is as pointless as you holding out for those blood-sucking producers you’re always talking about. One of us has to let go, Brian. One of us has to give in. And it’s not going to be me giving in this time.’

  ‘Maggs—’

  ‘We were so good once, Brian. I miss us. I miss being a family, but I know now that’s my dream, not yours. If you’d only agreed to come out here to live we might have had a chance. I’ve told you already; you’re on your own now, Brian. I’ll talk to you again when you’re sober.’

  Later, in bed, Maggie had only just managed to turn off her mind to him, ready to sleep for what seemed like the first time in days, when she remembered the text message that had come through over dinner. Now fumbling in the dark for the telephone, Maggie managed to retrieve her husband’s latest text.

  Sorry I wasn’t good enough.

  She returned the phone to her bedside table and for the first time didn’t lie awake staring at the ceiling. Instead, she thought about Dan and Charlie and wished she’d been a fly on the wall during their Thelma and Louise moment—all nine hours of it. They’d left town later than planned today, Dan driving by the pub and pulling up briefly after he’d picked Charlie up. Dan had tooted the horn and those in the bar and the beer garden had joined Maggie on the veranda to wave old Charlie off. She knew that stopping any longer would make their arrival in Sydney later still.

  As it was, once they made the Pacific Highway south of Newcastle Dan would be hit with the exodus of the city’s weekend warriors—an endless ribbon of blinding and mind-numbing headlights heading north. Never ideal driving conditions and worse still at the end of a long trip and so close to home. Maggie was glad he’d stopped by though, especially seeing Dan’s expression when she’d shouted a final, ‘Don’t forget about those cliffs and canyons!’

  She smiled again, thinking about his exaggerated face of panic just before the pair drove away from the pub.

  The knock came just after 2 am, the sound catapulting Maggie into a seated position in bed. She hadn’t been asleep exactly, but as close to solid slumber as she could recall in a while. A sleepy Noah stepped out into the hallway as she trod the creaking floorboards in full flight, hurriedly dragging on a dressing gown.

  ‘Mum? What is it?’ he asked through a yawn, smearing his fringe back over his head.

  ‘I don’t know,’ she called back, her dressing gown a billowing sail behind her as she padded barefoot down the stairs. ‘Go back to bed.’

  ‘Callum?’ Maggie’s heart lurched when she saw their local constable at the side door to the residence. ‘It’s so late. What is it? What’s wrong?’

  What could it be? Surely there was no room for any more tragedy in Maggie’s life. Hadn’t she had her share already? This had to be somebody else’s grief and somehow Maggie would be able to assist, just like the Rev used to do. That’s what it was.

  ‘Maggie,’ Callum said.

  ‘How can I help?’ she asked with forced optimism.

  ‘Sorry, I have had some bad news. There’s been a crash. I thought I should come straight over.’

  Dan!

  Afraid to release the supportive grip she kept on the door handle, as if she no longer trusted her legs to keep her standing, Maggie’s first thought was to close the door again.

  Dan’s dead. That’s why Callum’s here.

  What happens next? What should she do? Did she invite him in, offer tea or a comfortable chair before letting him watch her fall to pieces? She was already on a precipice. All she needed was a nudge.

  ‘Maggie, do you want to sit?’

  Maggie felt herself falling. ‘What? No, I …’ There was strength and comfort in Callum’s hands as he clasped both her shoulders, the vice-like hold managing to keep Maggie upright. ‘Charlie?’ she asked, the name almost lost in another sob.
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  ‘We found Charlie, Maggie. He’s fine. I really think you need to sit down.’

  ‘For God sake, Callum, just bloody say it. What happened? What’s happened to Dan?’

  ‘Dan’s fine too, Maggie. This isn’t about Dan or Charlie.’

  ‘Then I’m sorry, Callum. What? I’m confused. Whose crash are we talking about?’

  ‘I’ve been instructed to inform you that the single male occupant died before help arrived. The victim’s name is …’ Callum’s Adam’s apple slid up and down twice. It was all Maggie could focus on as she heard the two words: ‘Brian Henkler.’

  ‘Brian?’ Everything faded, folding in around her until all Maggie saw was the officer’s big round face slowly distorting, like seeing it through a security peephole, his words drowned out by Maggie’s mad scramble to recall their last conversation. She couldn’t remember, not a thing, none of it, except it had been angry.

  Still, the constable kept talking, his mouth moving, although Maggie’s head had switched off, registering only every second word, the earlier text message from Brian branding her brain: Sorry I wasn’t good enough.

  Maggie’s grip on the door tightened, along with every muscle in her body, from her toes now clawing the floor to her clenching jaw and nails pressing into the soft flesh of her palms. She didn’t know whether to be angry or sad, but one question burned. She was about to ask when Noah’s voice came out of the dark behind her.

  ‘Mum? Are you okay?’

  ‘Maggie?’ Callum’s voice penetrated the fog. ‘Can I do anything?’

  ‘She’ll be fine, thanks,’ Noah said, stepping forward to take control, his voice suddenly deeper. ‘I can look after Mum.’

  51

  Dan

  Dan was ill-prepared for a three-hour traffic jam on the Pacific Highway … in heatwave conditions … with his old man constantly fiddling with the air-conditioning, despite Dan thrice explaining the concept of electronic climate control. He supposed he should be grateful their southbound snarl was at least moving and they weren’t caught up in the mess travelling north. The constant convoy of emergency vehicles heading back up the highway: police rescue, fire, ambulance, all with flashing lights and sirens, suggested a major fatality. He thought about calling his colleagues to get the lowdown, but decided instead to drop in to the office tomorrow morning, after delivering Charlie to the X-ray place.

  ‘What gives, Ireland?’ Sergeant Frank Downey had been investigating road crashes since before horse-drawn trams—so the joke went. ‘Thought you were on leave.’

  ‘Needed some time out.’

  ‘Getting under the missus’s feet, are you?’

  ‘Under my old man’s skin more like it. Thought I’d drop in, see what’s up. I gather there was a bad one on the Pacific Highway late yesterday.’

  ‘One of many up that way according to the daily stats sheet. A single vehicle fatality further out west kept the Clarence area command busy. That Nine Mile Mountain Road. Tricky too. Took fire and rescue a few hours to recover the body. See what you’re missing out on?’ The old copper flung a wad of paper at Dan. ‘Lucky he didn’t take anyone out with him. I say if you wanna top yourself, don’t put others at risk.’

  ‘Vehicular suicide?’ Dan knew it happened. Isn’t that what the town had thought he’d tried when he crashed into the barbed-wire fence? ‘Wouldn’t be my choice. No certainty a crash will kill you.’

  ‘This bloke had that covered. Silly bastard,’ Downey snapped, while Dan scanned the report. ‘He was hedging his bets with a belly full of booze and God knows what else, probably.’

  Dan’s eyes stopped on the time of death and the name: Brian Steven Henkler.

  ‘Shit!’

  Dan’s first thought was of Maggie. He glanced at his wristwatch. He’d call her. Then he tried to calculate his arrival time in Calingarry Crossing, should he get in his car right now and start driving. He desperately wanted to be there for her, to be the one to deliver the news, to be the one to comfort her. But Dan knew the protocol. He knew the local bloke would’ve informed Maggie by now.

  Dan took some comfort from knowing Callum and Maggie were mates. Better that than a stranger delivering the news. Dan would wait a while before calling. But how long? When was the right time to call? There was no protocol Dan was aware of, especially with the notion of when being complicated by his own feelings right now.

  As it turned out he didn’t have to call. A week later, just when Dan was about to initiate contact, Maggie called him, her voice on the other end of the phone sounding so distant, small, brittle.

  ‘Dan? I’m sorry. I didn’t know who else to ring.’

  ‘It’s all right, Maggie. You can call me anytime. How are you?’

  ‘You heard?’

  ‘Yes. I wanted to call you. I just wasn’t sure …’ He stopped talking. Hearing Maggie’s tears and not being able to comfort her forced the tangle of anger and concern to knot in Dan’s stomach, her next question tugging tighter.

  ‘Is it true? Did he do it on purpose?’

  Dan Ireland prided himself on his professional mode, his coping mechanism whenever family members pleaded for information, desperate to know if their loved one had suffered. Mostly they wanted to know if the person had said anything before they died—anything at all.

  Engage now, he told himself. Pull back, detach, don’t make it personal.

  But this was Maggie and that made it very, very personal.

  ‘Do you have reasons to believe otherwise?’

  ‘Maybe I shouldn’t even be asking, Dan. I don’t mean to put you on the spot. If I shouldn’t ask you’d say, right? It’s just … I have to know and Callum either won’t or can’t say. I have to know if Brian … If his accident … Was it an accident? And don’t give me one of those lectures about “there is no such thing as an accident”. You know what I’m asking. Don’t make me say it aloud. I can’t. I have to know if it was something I said to him before …’

  The crash investigator in Dan suddenly switched to ON. He’d devoured everything from the crash scene analysis and reconstruction over one long sitting, but questions remained unanswered. Determining cause of death was up to the coroner.

  ‘These things take time, Maggie. Do you have a reason to suspect he might have done something like that?’

  Silence.

  ‘I have to ask, Maggie, off the record. This is me you’re talking to, okay?’

  ‘Callum … he … he told me the crash happened on Nine Mile Road,’ Maggie said, the brittleness back. ‘We talked the night before and he’d sent a text message. What was he doing up there? If he was coming here and he crashed because something I said made him. If I put him behind the wheel …’

  Dan wanted to fling his receiver at the fucking wall. Sitting in this room when he wanted to be in Calingarry Crossing, holding Maggie, was killing him.

  ‘No lecture, I promise, but Maggie, you didn’t make him pump himself full of booze. You weren’t a contributing factor. Remember what I said about choices? Brian made a choice to drink, to take drugs.’

  To drive his car into a ravine.

  ‘But if I forced him to choose …’

  ‘Maggie, listen to me, where Brian was going or why, we can’t know. You can’t think that.’

  ‘But I didn’t mean it, Dan.’

  Dan didn’t know what it was. He only knew that pitch in Maggie’s voice, the hint of desperation, made him want to hold her even more.

  ‘Didn’t mean what, Maggie?’

  No audible response, only the shaky uneven breaths of a silent sob.

  ‘Take a deep breath, Maggie,’ he whispered as reassuringly as he knew how, like he used to do with Emily when the Band-Aid had to come off. ‘You’ll feel better once whatever you want to say is said. Trust me.’

  ‘I … I told him we were over. Then I told him he was on his own. But I would never have abandoned him. Whatever he’s done, he’s Noah’s father and I knew he needed help. First I had to make it clear we we
re over. I didn’t say it to make him come to Calingarry. I was forcing him to choose every time I gave him an ultimatum in the past, knowing what his decision would be. Music was what he wanted. He’d already chosen. Putting the decision back on him meant Noah wouldn’t blame me. I’ve tried to tell myself I didn’t lose my husband in that crash, that I lost him years ago, but not knowing for sure … And if Noah ever thought—’

  ‘Maggie, stop. You weren’t to blame, not for the crash and not for your marriage. Noah’s a smart boy. He’ll work that out. Now, until the investigation is completed there are no certainties. I’ll see what I can find out, but only if you promise me you won’t blame yourself, no matter what the coroner finds.’

  She didn’t promise, she simply said, ‘Thank you, Dan,’ in a way that added a double hitch knot in that stomach of his for good fucking measure.

  52

  Dan

  The investigation dragged on. There were generally no quick determinations when fatalities or truck drivers were involved, and there had been witness statements about an unmarked B-double in the vicinity at the time. Second vehicle involvement had to be investigated and eliminated first. Dan called Maggie several times over the following weeks, every time another witness came forward to record a statement. Although careful not to say too much, each call was an excuse to hear her voice and know she was doing okay.

  He’d cut short his leave and returned to work. The boss didn’t say no. Sadly, the Christmas holidays meant busy workloads for the crash team. Every second night the kids stayed with Dan. Tracy was having a tough time with the pregnancy and Emily and Mike were keen to get away from ‘kooky Roger with the goo-goo baby noises’. Mike’s description, not Dan’s.

  Dan had started calling Maggie once a week, then a couple of times a week, now it was every second night, their conversations slowly shifting from things like Brian and who was to blame, to laughing over Ethne and Barnacle Bill’s bar room barnies, Sara’s monster-in-law jokes, and Noah’s squabbles with his pain-in-the-butt half-sister. One night Maggie had surprised Dan, telling him carefully about her son’s sexuality. That particular night they’d talked for three hours, crying one minute, laughing the next. Maggie told Dan about Phillip’s offer—at Fiona’s suggestion—to have Noah board with them in their penthouse should Sydney University accept him. Noah had decided on a Bachelor of Music degree so he could teach music. Dan had sensed Maggie’s reluctance about Phillip’s offer, particularly regarding Fiona’s influence, and he offered her his thoughts and observations of a very changed young woman who he saw from time to time in that impossible-to-miss canary-yellow Saab convertible. Dan had dined in the Potts Point penthouse several times at Phillip’s request and discovered Fiona worked in a building not far from police headquarters.