Northern Heat

by Helene Young

  Conor swallowed the lump in his throat, not trusting his voice to be steady enough to reply.

  Bill’s smile was lopsided as he straightened up from where he leant on the scarred kitchen bench. ‘You do yourself a favour and ask Dr Kristy out for a drink. She might just surprise you with her answer. See you tomorrow. Don’t be bloody late.’

  ‘Right.’ Conor’s murmured reply followed Bill down the dim corridor. ‘I’ll let myself out. Thanks for Christmas, Bill.’

  For once, sitting on the back deck of the Veritas, watching the sun disappear behind the Great Dividing Range did nothing to soothe the ache in Conor’s heart. He blamed it on the conversation with his mother. And on Bill and his mates. When he was at sea by himself he didn’t miss people as much as when he was among them, but still alone.

  He wondered how Kristy and Abby had spent Christmas. He tried to imagine them on a cattle property, maybe on horseback. It was too big a leap for his imagination. He’d never been to a working station. Rural Victoria was a long way from the vast tracts of land carved into properties up here in North Queensland. Was Bill right? He’d seen wariness in Kristy’s eyes at the police station, but she’d looked like she was going to drop a kiss on his cheek before she’d reached out and squeezed his shoulder.

  There was a lingering sadness that cloaked the doctor, even when she smiled. Early on at training Abby had mentioned she didn’t have a dad any more. For thirteen she was at times so very adult. He knew it was inevitable that he would compare her to Lily. His girl would have been thirteen this year. Starting secondary school, wearing braces, probably full of raging hormones. In the three months he’d known Abby, he’d watched her change. Conor had to agree with the old fishermen. Her friendship with Sienna McDonald wasn’t necessarily a good thing.

  Sienna and Freya wore designer clothes, too much make-up and false eyelashes. Abby and Kristy wore denim shorts, T-shirts and, as far as he could tell, sunscreen. He’d seen Kristy dressed up for the end of footy season dinner and she’d been tugging at her dress. She’d confided as they stood next to each other in the line for a hamburger that her shoes were pinching her.

  Abby had her mother’s body shape and was never going to be a distance runner, but she was fit and agile. Some time in the last month she’d started to look scrawny. Conor was no expert, but he suspected she was on a diet. Sienna could be the only reason for that. Peer-group pressure on teenagers must be crazy.

  He wasn’t on social media, but he knew how it ruled the lives of so many of his young students. Why hadn’t he thought of that earlier? He stood up and stretched, looked across the inlet. The evening star was rising in the navy sky. Little or no moon tonight, nothing but the swathe of the Milky Way. The air was lush and ripe, the mosquitoes gathering. He lit a citronella candle in the cockpit before he went below.

  The kettle had almost boiled before he managed to coax an internet connection out of his modem. He let the tea bag stew in the water as his emails downloaded. Finally, cup in hand, he sat back into the soft cushions of the built-in lounge and typed Kristy Dark into Google. A LinkedIn profile came up first, followed by a Facebook page. He browsed LinkedIn first. She had hundreds of connections, mostly professional contacts. It didn’t look as though she visited the page much. She’d gone to a secondary school in Cairns, graduated from the University of Queensland with her medical degree and worked at two different hospitals before moving to Cooktown a year ago. He did the sums. She was about thirty-four years old. Made her a young mum when she’d had Abby. He frowned. In fact she would have been studying Medicine while she was pregnant. That was a big call.

  He clicked on the Facebook page. The profile picture was a smiling family of four. Kristy beamed at the camera, one arm around a younger Abby, who sported red and pink braces on her teeth, and her chin resting on the head of a young boy who was sitting in her lap. Behind them stood an older man, distinguished looking with a steady gaze and pride in his smile. The photo radiated happiness, and Conor straightened against the familiar wave of sorrow. He used to have photos like that.

  He checked the timeline. It had been two years since anything was posted. And the last post made him suck in a breath.

  Thank you for all your kind words. Abby and I appreciate your love and support. We’ve made the hard decision to close this Facebook page because we need to move on. We have all those happy memories to sustain us and we’d prefer to start a new chapter, leaving this page intact so we can all visit Tyler and Finn. Thank you for understanding, for loving us enough to allow us space to grieve. Wishing you rainbows and sunshine, Kristy and Abby.

  He sat back, lost for words. This wasn’t what he expected to find at all. He’d figured she was divorced, that Abby was an only child. This message spoke of loss, of death.

  ‘Rainbows and sunshine. Plenty of that in Cooktown.’

  He tried to scroll back through the comments, but only the final one had a public rating so he couldn’t access anything else.

  ‘Tyler Dark,’ he muttered as he typed. Multiple hits, but nothing particularly interesting until he reached the third page. ‘Dr Tyler Dark. Shit. That makes sense.’ It was an obituary for a man remembered as a visionary in the medical field. A man whose life was tragically cut short by a car accident, leaving a grieving wife and daughter. There was mention of how he and his family had been recently devastated by the loss of their three-year-old son in a drowning accident. How his inability to save his son had weighed heavily on him.

  ‘That’s a whole lot of hurt right there,’ Conor murmured.

  He knew all about the debilitating pain of loss. The physical ache in his heart, the stomach-churning disbelief as he’d identified his wife and his daughter at the morgue still haunted him. He got to his feet and emptied his mug of tea into the sink, then poured a large scotch. He and the doctor had a whole lot more in common than he’d initially thought. Although, could anything be more painful than losing a child, knowing you had the skill to save so many other lives?

  Those hard-won smiles were all the more precious. He’d do more to coax them from those reluctant lips. Do more to make those blue, blue eyes crinkle in amusement. It was irrational, but it suddenly seemed desperately important to make the good doctor happy again.

  8

  Black Mountain loomed overhead, as though a giant’s child had heaped all their building blocks into an untidy pile. Kristy had a strong memory of a cold winter’s morning when her father had rolled down the car windows and said, ‘Feel that.’ He’d waggled his fingers out the window. ‘That’s the heart of the mountain keeping its people warm.’ Kristy had leant her head out of the car, desperate to feel the heat against the rush of cold air.

  She pulled off into an empty car park at one of the lookouts and angled the car so the mountain filled her windscreen. It was not a mountain to be climbed. The Kuku Yalanji people called it Kalkajaka and it played a significant role in their Dreamtime. Dotted over the seemingly barren slopes were native fig trees, whose roots stretched down into the bowels of the mountain, finding precious water even at the end of a long dry summer.

  She was less than an hour from home and had nowhere to be in a hurry. Driving away from Ruby Downs, tears had blurred the road, but the sadness was tempered with anticipation. For the first time in fourteen years she was going to spend four weeks alone. It felt decadent, as though she was going on holidays despite having to work every day. The niggle of guilt kept her from singing. She finally understood why colleagues made such a fuss about going to conferences and then wanted only to lounge in hotel rooms and eat room service.

  For once she could sit here and gaze at a wonder of nature without Abby harping on about getting home. She smiled at the memory of her daughter’s parting words: ‘I’ve told Freya to email you the websites. See if you can find something to go running in. And please be nice to Conor if you see him.’

  Meg had been trying hard not to laugh while Craig gave his granddaughter’s hair a gentle tug.

  ‘
Oi, Grandpa,’ Abby complained. ‘This is serious.’

  Kristy had watched them shrinking in the rear-vision mirror. Abby, wearing one of Kristy’s old akubras, was flanked by her grandparents, with their suntanned faces and windblown hair. The centre of her universe was all in one place while she spun off on a different trajectory.

  Did that trajectory include Conor?

  Too many times over the past week his dark eyes and slow smile had interrupted her thoughts.

  She’d floated in the swimming hole just yesterday, listening to Abby splashing about, and imagined bringing Conor there on a hot afternoon. Did he ride horses or was he only a man of the sea? Would he share her delight in the simple pleasure of diving into cool water and feeling the whisper of it across his skin? Or was he more likely to want to talk politics with her father, as Tyler had?

  It was probably going to be a waste of money, but she’d check out the sites Freya was sending her. What harm could it do? Riding out at Ruby Downs and walking the dogs in the relative cool of the evenings had already made her clothes sit a little more comfortably. She’d never be the lanky teenager again, nor did she want to be. Bearing children had changed her shape forever and she didn’t mind that, but she didn’t want to go up a dress size every year and then wonder how that happened.

  She glanced down at her hands resting on the steering wheel. And maybe she’d have time to do her nails for a change. It had been a long while since they’d been anything but square-cut and unvarnished.

  She laughed out loud at herself. ‘Kristy Dark, why would you bother with a makeover when there’s only one man in town you’d actually looked sideways at and all his flirting has led precisely nowhere? You’re dreaming. Get over it. Conor is a practised flirt with no intent of following through.’

  She started the ignition with a smile hovering on her lips. It didn’t matter that she might never actually even have a social drink with Conor; just having him flirt with her was empowering in a way she’d never appreciated before. Perhaps Abby wasn’t the only one with hormones running amok . . .

  She’d barely been home half an hour before Mary bustled through the door.

  ‘Hey, love, how was your Christmas? Did your mum and dad like the smoked mackerel?’

  ‘Mary, as usual it was delicious.’ Kristy dropped some clothes into the washing machine and turned to give her neighbour a hug. ‘And how was yours?’

  ‘Yeah, not too shabby at all. Caught up with some of my friends, and the relatives who are still talking to me. The whole town’s bothered over Danny’s murder, though. Everyone’s got a theory. Course I do have something of inner-circle status, but my lips are sealed.’ She mimed zipping her lips closed, but the gleam was still in her eyes.

  ‘And sadly I have nothing to say that hasn’t already appeared on the internet courtesy of young Derek,’ Kristy said.

  ‘What about Conor? I heard Joyce followed him up the hill the other day. Surely to goodness they don’t really believe the man ran all that way, forced his way in through a secure gate, pulled a gun, shot Danny and then hung around, calling out to Debbie to get an ambulance?’

  Kristy smiled. ‘Maybe you should be running the case. By now you’d have apprehended the killer and he’d be sobbing out a full confession.’

  ‘Or she?’

  ‘A woman? Who?’

  ‘Well, there’s some speculation that Danny boy might have been following in his father’s footsteps. Old man Parnell had a hard time remembering which way was up on his fly. Mrs Parnell did a mean line in stiff upper lip, but she knew all about her husband’s philandering ways. Rumour has it that every time he strayed she racked up a huge debt on the credit card. God knows why they stayed together.’

  ‘And Danny?’ Kristy was sifting through possible candidates.

  ‘It’s only rumour, but there’s a whisper that Debbie was crying her heart out at the hairdresser’s before all this happened. You know Maureen thinks she’s some kind of de facto priest so she won’t breathe a word. “What’s said in the privacy of the salon, stays in the privacy of the salon,”’ Mary said in a singsong voice. ‘The woman thrives on gossip.’

  ‘She is the model of discretion though. I’m not a regular by any means, but she doesn’t talk about other clients at all.’

  ‘Well, one of her girls has loose lips. Anyway, Conor’s been round today, looking for you. I told him you’d be back this evening. He didn’t want to leave a message.’

  ‘Must be about training.’ Kristy struggled to keep her voice uninterested. ‘I’ll catch him tomorrow. I need to unpack and get the washing done.’ She shrugged at Mary’s quizzical look. ‘When water’s so scarce on Ruby Downs I don’t like to waste it on washing. Far easier to bring it all home.’

  ‘They’re still doing it tough?’

  ‘Praying for rain. Even a cyclone would almost be welcome right now. Or at least a rain depression in the wake of a storm.’

  ‘Looks like that might happen sooner rather than later. There’s one in the Coral Sea right now and they’re predicting it could go anywhere.’ Mary laughed at her own joke. The storms were notoriously unpredictable.

  ‘Provided it’s not around on the weekend I’m collecting Abby that will be just fine. You want to come round for dinner tonight? Dad’s sent me home with half a side of beef. Some excellent steaks I can drop on the barbie.’

  ‘That’d be great. I’ll bring potato salad. Need anything else?’

  ‘Nope. See you at seven-ish?’

  ‘Perfect.’

  It took Kristy another two hours to finish the washing, unpack and settle back in again. At least when Abby came home she’d only need to tip her suitcase contents into the washing machine and life would be back to normal. She sat on Abby’s bed and looked around the room. Boy-band posters plastered over one wall hid the marks from previous tenants. The white lampshade had been draped with a pink scarf. It was probably a fire risk, but it gave the room a rosy glow.

  A tennis racquet peeked out from under the bed. Kristy nudged it with her toe. It jammed against something and she bent down to look. A plastic box with snap handles was in the way and she hauled it out. Magazines. She should have guessed. She wasn’t going to pry but then she saw a wedding dress on one of the covers. The magazine was dog-eared, but in good condition. She leafed through the turned-down pages. Beautiful dresses adorned skinny models who didn’t look old enough to be legally married. One dress had pink highlighting around it. Kristy had to admit it was stunning and the model wearing this one was a little older and definitely more curvy. The sweetheart neckline had a modern vee to it and the dress draped gently with a tiny ruche at the waist, the fabric soft enough to cling to the model’s long legs. Statuesque was the word Kristy would have used. It would suit a fuller figure. She closed the magazine. Thirteen seemed a little young to be collecting wedding dress ideas.

  Kristy had been focused on getting good marks at school and had definitely belonged in the nerdy group. When she did marry it was a simple ceremony with family and a couple of friends. Exams were looming, morning sickness had taken the gloss off the world, and Tyler hadn’t wanted a ‘big production’. She’d told herself it didn’t matter, that he loved her anyway so why waste money on one day, especially when it was his second marriage? She looked down at her bare hands. If she’d known then what she knew now she would have seen that decision for what it was. Tyler had dictated terms long before the day she snapped and told him to leave, long before he took a bend too fast on a wet road and slammed into a tree.

  A knock on her front door interrupted her thoughts. She dropped the magazine back in the box. Time to tidy that later. She tugged her top down over her denim shorts, grateful that the air-conditioning had finally won the battle with the accumulated heat. The knock sounded again.

  ‘Coming,’ she called, hurrying now with a premonition. Everyone else knocked twice and then barged in if the door was unlocked. She fumbled as she opened the door. Conor, looking darkly attractive, was stan
ding a metre back from the door. He looked like he had an escape plan.

  ‘Conor, how are you? Mary said you’d called earlier.’ She was frozen to the spot, wanting to say something witty instead of sounding like her mother again.

  ‘Ah, yes. Mary was most insistent I leave a message. Wasn’t too happy when I said I’d call back later. I half expected Joyce to come and collect me for questioning on a break-and-enter charge.’ His smile reached all the way to the lines around his eyes and softened the angles of his face.

  Embarrassed, she swung the door wider. ‘Do you want to come in? It’s a whole lot cooler in than out.’

  ‘I’d love to,’ he replied with another of those devastating smiles. She flattened herself against the spindly hall table. Her knees felt like she’d ridden all day over uneven ground.

  ‘So how was Christmas?’ he asked, brushing past her as she closed the door. He smelt like the sea. His hair was neatly combed back and she thought he might have had it cut because she could see the corded muscles high on his shoulders and into his neck.

  She gestured ahead towards the rear of the house, not trusting herself to manoeuvre round him again without touching him.

  ‘Great, thanks.’ Her voice sounded steady enough. ‘And yours?’

  ‘Bill turned on a feast and invited all his old mates. Fascinating day. And the hangover wasn’t even too bad. All wrapped up by five o’clock.’

  ‘An early night then. Coffee or tea or a cold drink? I can probably rustle up a beer?’

  ‘Tea would great,’ he replied, stopping by the kitchen table and looking around him.

  As she filled the kettle she wondered how he saw her home. The quirky house suited her antiques better than she’d expected. Its bare, unpolished floorboards, whitewashed walls and plain light fittings were a canvas waiting to be coloured by the rich oak tones of the furniture, the red leather couch that had cost them a bomb fourteen years ago and the scattered rugs, each with a flare of red somewhere in the pattern. Giant cushions took away the formality of the couch. Gauzy curtains draped the long windows, fluttering as the blast from the air-conditioner swept across the room. It felt like home, more than anywhere else she’d lived since she left Ruby Downs as a teenager. The sterile university college had been somewhere to crash between lectures and parties. Then she’d moved into Tyler’s house with its sprawling elegance, Persian rugs and valuable antiques. The only thing she’d added to that house in fourteen years was the couch.