Northern Heat

by Helene Young

  ‘Did you know the Parnells well?’ she asked her mother as she followed her to the kitchen with a pile of plates.

  Meg nodded, running water into the sink. ‘Well enough. Terrible thing with young Danny. His parents weren’t on the land when I first came north with your father. They bought that property a couple of years later, even though everyone said it was worthless. We all thought they were mad. Had the last laugh in the end when they found a gold seam in the hills. Danny and his brothers were teenagers by then.’

  ‘Are the older Parnells still on the property?’

  ‘No, they sold to a multinational. One that had interests in Papua New Guinea as well. It set them up for life.’ She shook her head. ‘What a terrible thing to happen. Especially . . .’ She was close to tears and Kristy knew they were more about their own family’s loss, not Danny.

  ‘I know. His poor wife was devastated.’

  ‘Debbie was one of the Wrights from down at Chillagoe,’ Meg said. ‘I seem to remember she and Danny met at a B & S ball. I think he was still working for the mine then so they lived in Cooktown. Once the family sold out of the mine I doubt he needed to work again, but he got a job in the shire council. I heard he was looking to run for parliament. His parents moved south a couple of years ago. There were three other brothers so at least they still have them.’

  Kristy’s chest contracted with a familiar fear. She’d had two children and now she only had one. If something happened to Abby . . .

  Meg reached out and squeezed her hand. ‘Sorry, love,’ she said. ‘That came out all wrong.’

  ‘No, it’s okay. It’s true. I heard Danny’s funeral filled St Mary’s. The family didn’t want to wait until after Christmas.’

  ‘I can’t believe the police haven’t caught anyone yet. I did hear at the CWA meeting the other day they thought the local coach might have been involved.’

  Kristy shook her head, amazed at the efficiency of the bush telegraph and the flow of news. ‘I’d put money on Conor being an innocent bystander. If he shot Danny, why would he stick around and call the police? It makes no sense.’

  ‘No, I guess not.’ Meg didn’t sound convinced. ‘And I also heard that Danny might have been seeing someone else.’

  ‘Really? With so few women to go around you’d think he’d hang onto the one he had.’

  ‘Well, that’s what Meredith said. That makes it gossip, of course, not fact. So maybe you should just forget I said that.’

  ‘I understand.’

  ‘Understand what?’ Abby interrupted, bouncing into the room.

  ‘Understand that your Uncle Lex couldn’t get away this year,’ Meg replied without missing a beat.

  ‘Oh. Did he send presents?’

  ‘Abby!’ Kristy was half amused, half outraged.

  ‘Well, you’re the one who was complaining about all the shopping for Christmas presents. I just hope they remembered us too. We did get them some truly awesome pressies, even if I say so myself. You would have been hopeless without me.’

  Meg laughed and wrapped her arms around her granddaughter, rocking her from side to side. ‘Where do you get this straight shooting from? Your mum barely said boo when she was thirteen. Always off with her head in a book, or daydreaming on a horse. She hated going to town for a shopping trip.’

  Abby wrinkled her nose at her mother. ‘You mean she’s always had a defective shopping gene?’

  Craig came in with the salt and pepper shakers. ‘Yep, she was happier with me at the produce store than she was with her mother.’

  ‘Gross. I’ve been telling her she needs to try dressing up a little.’ Abby cast a critical eye over her mother’s three-quarter-length pants and floaty top. ‘Although she looks okay today.’

  ‘You miss the point, Abby,’ her grandfather replied. ‘You mum looks good in a pair of overalls so it really doesn’t matter what she wears. It’s only window dressing. Clothes don’t make the man. Now come and help me work out who gets to open the first present.’ He shepherded her out the door and Kristy turned to her mother.

  ‘I only wish Abby had her head in a book a little more than she has her nose in Facebook.’

  ‘She has plenty of books for Christmas and you know she won’t get internet all the time she’s here. But . . .’ Meg shrugged. ‘They’re all doing it. Everyone’s complaining about internet for kids. Lex tried to ban his two and they just about ran away from home. Don’t worry, she’s doing okay.’

  ‘Do you think she’s looking skinny?’ Kristy had to ask.

  Meg’s sharp gaze rested on her daughter’s face for a long moment. ‘Do I think she has an eating disorder?’

  Kristy’s nod was jerky. Meg’s mouth softened.

  ‘I caught her throwing up after we’d baked those scones the other day. I wasn’t going to worry you until she’d been here for the whole break. To be fair, she’s slim more than skinny. Nothing that can’t be undone.’

  ‘But she’s my responsibility.’ The knot in Kristy’s stomach wound tighter. ‘Rationally I know it’s all tied up with losing so much so young, feeling disempowered, like she has no say, but . . .’

  ‘Her little friend Sissy doesn’t seem to be a great influence either.’

  ‘I kind of hope some of Abby might rub off on Sissy.’

  ‘And I’m sure it goes both ways.’ There was a moment’s silence before Meg continued. ‘She’s doing okay. I’m sure this will pass as well.’

  ‘But this silly scheme to find herself a new dad? It’s crazy!’

  Meg laughed. ‘I’d call it enterprising.’ Kristy rolled her eyes as her mother continued. ‘You’ve always worried too much. Let’s see what shape Abby’s in when she leaves here.’

  ‘Hmm.’

  ‘Kristy, I know Tyler let you down in so many ways, but you were a young woman who’d barely left home when you met him. You’re not the same woman. You won’t make the same choices; you’ll look for different qualities in a man.’

  ‘And if there is a next time I’ll bring him home first and pay close attention to your opinion.’

  ‘Hindsight. Only clear way of knowing someone, love.’ Meg slung her arm around Kristy’s shoulders. ‘We were concerned Tyler was too old, too set in his ways. You deserved someone who worshipped you, not the other way around.’

  ‘Mum,’ Abby called from the lounge room before Kristy could respond. ‘Hurry up. I get to open my present first.’

  ‘Now how would that happen?’ Meg asked with a chuckle, leading the way out of the kitchen. She slowed just before they reached the others. ‘You’re too young to be single for the rest of your life, Kristy. Plenty of gentle, kind men in the world.’

  Abby followed her mother into the room where the Christmas tree in its glittering mantle of tinsel and fairly lights filled the corner by the French doors. Kind and gentle most certainly didn’t describe Conor. Dark and dangerous was much more appropriate, and that made him all wrong for her.

  And yet?

  7

  Conor hauled another round of cold beers from the ice. He’d lost count. Bill and his fishing mates could drink most city boys under the table. Conor was keen not to end up there himself. The stories were getting more gory as the day wore on. Prawn shells filled a bucket, the remains of a leg of lamb were festering on the barbecue and most of the salads were untouched. Conor judged that he was the youngest there by a good thirty years. The old fishermen’s weathered hides had convinced him he should reach for the sunscreen next time he boarded the Lady Leonie.

  He handed out the bottles as Bill wrapped up his latest story.

  ‘And I told that smartarse McDonald that if he showed his face around my boat again I’d fuckin’ gut him,’ Bill said, in danger of toppling off his plastic chair. No two chairs were the same and the six men sitting in them couldn’t have been more different either. The one thing they all had in common was a lifetime of living in Cooktown. ‘Little fucker spat at me, but I haven’t seen him since.’

  ‘And good ridd
ance to ’em. They can stay out at their fancy house with their slut of a mother. Never did understand what the old man saw in her except big knockers.’

  ‘It wasn’t like he was the sharpest tool in the workshop, Arny,’ Bill retorted. ‘He stuttered like an old Victa lawnmower on a cold morning.’ He cackled, showing teeth in need of a dentist. ‘He might have been a fine bushman and he could tell a good breeding cow from a dud, but he had as much charisma as a dead dingo’s donga.’

  The men all laughed, and the mental image left Conor shaking his head. He thought he’d heard colloquialisms before, but these guys must have invented the game.

  ‘That wife of Jonno’s is a bit of a looker though,’ one of them said. ‘And she’s friendly, not stuck up like Mrs I’ve-got-a-poker-up-my-arse Evelyn McDonald. Mind, she’d do well to keep that daughter of hers off the street. Nothing but trouble. And she’s leading young Abby astray. Someone needs to tell Dr Kristy.’

  ‘Kristy’s a fine woman. Like she hasn’t got enough trouble on her plate. My Leonie thought the world of her.’ There were tears in Bill’s eyes now and the men all stared at their beers, nodding in agreement. ‘Abby will be fine. Just need to find a good man for her mother. Woman like that deserves a little bit of happiness, after everything.’

  Conor’s ears pricked up. He took a sip of beer and stayed silent, listening to the men talk among themselves.

  ‘Yeah. Know her dad real well. Craig’s a good cattleman too. He and old McDonald were two of the best. And her mum’s a right little trooper.’

  ‘He caught a good one when he snaffled Meg. Pity that boy of theirs couldn’t come home and work for his father. Old Craig must be ready to retire.’

  ‘Yeah. But I can’t see him doing that anytime soon. Not unless Kristy finds a fella who wants to take over.’

  ‘Steady. We can’t lose the best doctor we’ve had in Cooktown for years so Craig and Meg can have a holiday.’

  Bill chuckled, slipping even more sidewards. ‘Good point. The way we’re going we’ll all need her to carve off the skin cancers.’

  ‘So what’s your story, Conor?’ Arny turned bleary eyes in his direction.

  Conor waved his beer at them. ‘You guys have lived way more interesting lives.’

  ‘They love you up at the club. I was a bit suss to start with. Where’d you say you lived before?’

  ‘Melbourne, Sydney, here and there.’

  ‘No ball and chain?’

  Conor shook his head. ‘Just happy hanging in Cooktown.’

  ‘They haven’t caught the bastards that shot young Danny, have they?’ Arny leant forward. He and Bill had spent many a night in the pub, cradling their beers and solving the problems of the world.

  ‘No. They’ve only got my description of the car and some info from one of the neighbour’s boys. Not much to go on.’

  ‘At least Bill reckons Joyce has stopped hounding you.’

  ‘Oh, I wouldn’t say that.’

  ‘Stupid punk. He’s had too much attitude from the start,’ Arny growled. ‘You’d think we were all criminals, the way he behaves.’

  That brought a round of sniggers from the men and some sideways glances. Conor almost laughed. He hadn’t thought of any of these guys being involved in something shady, and he doubted they still were, but half of them looked guilty as hell – Bill included.

  ‘So is it true you were knocking off the barmaid from the Cook, the good-looking one with the . . .’ Arny gestured at his chest.

  Conor laughed. ‘No, I wasn’t knocking her off, nor was I having a relationship with her. She was good company but . . .’ He shrugged. ‘I must have seemed like a safe bet, the way you lecherous lot leer at her over the bar day in, day out.’

  That brought a fresh round of laughter and Arny heaved to his feet. ‘I’d better head home. The kids’ll be ringing.’

  ‘You need to get a mobile, mate, get with the times,’ Bill ribbed him.

  ‘No bloody use to me, mate. Half the time you’re out of range and the other half people send you those message things. Me daughter gave me one last Christmas. It makes a perfectly good paper weight for me fishing magazines.’

  The party gradually broke up, drifting back to their own homes and leaving Conor, as the soberest man standing, to clean up. He didn’t mind, although Bill’s snoring was akin to a saw grinding through reinforced cement. The old fella lived in one of the original wooden houses a couple of streets from the river. It was immaculate on the outside, but starting to show the owner’s bachelor status on the inside. Leonie wouldn’t have approved of the grime around the bottom of the rings on the stove. Conor was pretty sure she wouldn’t have approved of the state of the placemats either, but at least Bill religiously protected the wooden surfaces from even a hint of moisture.

  Conor finished wiping down the kitchen benches. The empty beer bottles were standing in rows outside the back door. He’d been tempted to toss them all into the bin, but he wasn’t sure Bill’s heart would cope with being woken by the racket.

  He stopped in front of the yellowing photos on a cedar sideboard, their metal frames ornate. Bill had been a bull of a young man and Leonie was tiny beside him in her wedding dress, a little hat perched on her curls. It must have been the 1950s, Conor thought, which would make Bill a whole lot older than he’d thought he was. He did the sums. Anywhere over seventy was entirely plausible. Apart from the teeth and the skin he was in much better shape than Conor’s father had been the last time he saw him.

  When he’d called his mother that morning to wish her a happy Christmas she’d sounded tired. ‘Your father’s not sleeping well at the moment.’

  ‘Insomnia?’ Conor had asked.

  ‘Just a chest infection. He’s coughing a lot.’

  ‘In summer?’

  ‘You know your father. Always has to have something to complain about.’

  Conor didn’t have a reply for that. ‘My way or the highway’ could have been written for his father. Conor had chosen the highway, but he knew it was his mother who paid the emotional price of having two stubborn men in her life. He’d moved the conversation on to their plans for the day. It was forecast to be 35 degrees in the shade in Geelong. At least their new home was air-conditioned. He only hoped his father didn’t ban his mother from using it on principle because Conor had paid for it. He did know how hard his mother had worked to convince her husband to take the house as a gift. He’d almost handed over tax returns to convince his old man that he’d legitimately earned the money. Once the news broke that he’d been tangled up with an international crime ring, inadvertently or not, he’d half expected his father to move back to their old place. But all that tainted money had either been returned or distributed to charities. The only money Conor retained was his own, earned with blood, sweat and tears.

  This morning his mother’s voice made the weight of loneliness press down in a way it hadn’t for some months.

  ‘Conor . . .’ she’d started to say.

  He’d known what she meant. ‘I miss you too.’

  ‘It’s been too long. I’d love to see you. We miss you.’

  ‘You miss me. Dad’s never going to forgive me.’

  ‘Don’t leave it too late, Conor. Time heals. Maybe not everything, but it changes a lot.’

  By the time he hung up she’d prised a promise out of him to come and see her for her birthday. That left him with four months to contemplate the wisdom of boarding a plane back to Melbourne. He knew she wanted to see him happy, wanted another shot at being a grandmother even. He wasn’t sure any of that was possible.

  Bill, yawning and rubbing his belly, shuffled in from the back verandah and peered around his kitchen. ‘Thanks, son. Leonie would have approved.’

  Conor nodded at the pictures. ‘You snaffled yourself a good-looking girl.’

  ‘Yeah,’ Bill agreed, rubbing the stubble on his jaw. ‘Her parents hated me. Married beneath herself, she did.’

  ‘Where’d you meet?’

 
; ‘In Cairns. I was working on one of the trawlers out of Trinity Inlet, saving money to buy me own. There wasn’t much to do but get drunk on the weekend. The Methodist church used to put on a spread on a Sunday. Sitting through a sermon for an hour or two was a small price to pay for a feed and pretty ladies to talk to. I used to get myself a shave on a Saturday afternoon and clean under me nails. I had one decent shirt and a pair of long pants. Leonie was the prettiest girl at that church. Her father was the choirmaster. Her mum worked as a seamstress. Took me six months before she’d let me hold her hand and then I asked her to marry me. Hell of fuss, but she’d made up her mind and we got married in that same little church. I’d bought me first trawler by then so we sailed north to Cooktown, rented this place for a few years. In the good years I saved enough so we bought it.’

  ‘Any kids?’

  ‘Nah. Never had any luck in that department; Leonie wore it harder than me. We fostered a few kids, but it hurt her too much to give ’em up. I thought she’d accepted it, but maybe she didn’t. Maybe that’s why the cancer got her.’

  ‘I’m sorry.’ Conor wished he hadn’t opened the door on this conversation. When they fished they stayed away from all things personal.

  ‘So am I. Never did take to all that Christian stuff, but I’m glad Leonie had her faith. Made it easier for her in the end. Me, I reckon you only get one shot at this world. The money, the status, you know, it’s not worth a pinch of bat shit. It’s the people you touch, the difference you make – that’s the point to it. My Leonie knew that. Took for her to die before I really appreciated it. The church was packed at her funeral. So many people she’d helped out, so many people came to say thank you. Made me look at everything differently.’ He glanced at Conor with watery eyes that seemed to see right through him.

  ‘Dunno what it is you’re running from, son, but you want my advice, you need to stop. Look around. You do good things with those kids up at the club and I don’t reckon you need a cent of my money. You’re a good man, Conor, here where it counts.’ One arthritic hand tapped the centre of Bill’s ample chest.