Northern Heat

by Helene Young

  ‘Honey, did the sausages not taste good? Have you had a tummy ache today?’

  ‘No! It’s not about the food.’

  ‘Then what’s it about?’

  ‘You! You’re horrible.’

  ‘I’m sorry I had to go to work, but it was an emergency. I left Conor to bring you home.’

  ‘That’s not the point!’ She could hear fresh tears in her daughter’s voice. The door flew open and a defiant Abby stood there with her hands on her too-skinny hips. ‘I thought you were getting along with Conor. I thought you liked him. I know he likes you!’

  Kristy was momentarily struck dumb. This was about Conor? ‘We are getting along. I said we’d go sailing with him some time. Soon,’ she added as her daughter’s bottom lip jutted and her eyes welled with tears.

  ‘Then why won’t you go and rescue him from the police?’

  ‘Abby, I can’t. Even if I wanted to they might not release him to me. If they’ve arrested him, then there’ll be a bail to be paid, a sum of money.’

  ‘Oh God, oh God, we’ll never see him again,’ Abby wailed. She rushed past her mother, tears flooding down her cheeks, and stormed to her bedroom. Kristy knew the lock didn’t work and she counted to ten before levering herself to her feet.

  How did she handle this one? She sure as hell wasn’t driving down to the jetty to see if he was on his boat. She walked back to the kitchen and picked up the phone. What was the worst that could happen? Conor’s voice asked her to leave a message. She hung up and dialled another number.

  It answered after four rings.

  ‘Oh, good evening, it’s Dr Dark, Kristy Dark from the hospital. It’s a bit of a strange inquiry, but it’s possible one of my patients is being held in the station.’

  ‘Hi Kristy, it’s John Joyce. Who’s your patient? There’s only one person in the cells.’

  ‘Ah, it’s um . . . Conor.’

  ‘Right. Then you’re off the hook.’ Disapproval dripped from every word. ‘He went home a couple of hours ago.’

  Relief poured through her. ‘That’s great. I was worried about him after I told him the news on Bill McBride.’

  ‘He’s not doing too good?’

  ‘Early days yet, but it will be a long road. Conor mentioned he needed to move Bill’s trawler up the river if this cyclone’s coming in.’

  ‘Yeah, the news has it crossing the coast just north of here. Probably in less than forty-eight hours. We’ll be in the worst possible path.’

  ‘Hell, that’s not good.’

  ‘Wise to implement the hospital’s cyclone emergency plan early rather than later.’

  ‘Thanks, I’ll do that.’

  ‘And Kristy? Piece of advice. I’d be careful of Conor Woods. That’s not his real name and if he’s who I suspect he is, then he was implicated in the murder of his wife and daughter along with being linked to international organised crime. You can’t be too trusting.’ He didn’t wait for her to reply before he hung up.

  ‘What the hell?’ she murmured. Conor had told her his family was dead, but he’d omitted the word ‘murdered’. She shuddered, her heart thudding. She’d assumed it had been a car accident. Had she allowed a monster into their lives? What sort of man had links to organised crime? Was that why the McDonalds had been so hostile? Did they know something she didn’t?

  She shook her head, trying to make sense of it. What a lousy track record she had with picking a good man. She ignored the slither of regret. Abby was too precious.

  There was no answer to her gentle tap at her daughter’s bedroom door so she eased it open. Abby was huddled under the bed covers, the air-conditioning blasting. Kristy sat beside her.

  ‘I phoned the police and Conor went home a few hours ago. He’s safe on his boat, honey.’ For now, she added mentally. Her daughter turned away and Kristy stroked her dark hair. Abby used to love having it brushed. Tyler would sit at night if they were watching TV or reading together, endlessly running a brush through it. He could be so gentle.

  Kristy needed to understand what it was that Abby thought was going to happen and why she’d come to place so much store in her mother and her coach getting together. She continued stroking Abby’s hair until her daughter’s lips fluttered with the first baby snores of sleep. She tiptoed out.

  In the kitchen her sausages had congealed on the plate. She went to toss them in the bin, but thought better of it. She needed to eat herself. In the couple of minutes it took to reheat them she’d opened her laptop and tapped in ‘bulimia’. Conor and his sexy smile were history. Abby was more important.

  22

  Freya tried to stifle her scream as Jonno grabbed a handful of her hair and hauled her backwards.

  ‘Where are the fuckin’ passports?’

  She shook her head, but he only tightened his grip. ‘I don’t know. How many times do I have to tell you?’ Tears, hot and salty, poured down her cheeks. Over dinner Jonno had come up with a plan to fly her and the children out for a holiday in Thailand while the cyclone did its thing. Except now there were no passports to be found.

  ‘Jesus Christ, if I find you’ve lost them —’

  ‘I haven’t. They must be in your office somewhere. You’re the one who had them last.’ Her defiance was going to cost her. She cried out as he twisted her hair tighter.

  ‘And how would you know that?’ he snarled. The smell of alcohol clung to his skin and his breath.

  ‘Because you collected them from the post office.’ At least that much was true. She glared at him, her chest heaving, fear banging against her rib cage.

  He ran his tongue around his teeth then gave her a shove. Not all her hair went with her. She landed on her knees and shook her head, the pain in her scalp steadying her. Before she could get to her feet she heard him walk behind her. She scrambled away, lashing out with her foot. It connected with his knee and he grunted.

  ‘Stay where you are, bitch.’

  ‘No,’ she snapped back, the low table between them now. She was finished pretending, she was over the softly, softly approach. She felt as though her head was going to explode with the rage. ‘I’m not your fucking slut.’

  ‘Oh, but you are. You always have been.’

  Freya shook her head. Jonno had been expansive during dinner as he came up with the holiday plan, but her fear grew with each empty beer can. Once the guests had retired to their wing she’d fled upstairs to the bedroom, hoping her children were asleep.

  Now she drew her shoulders back, tidied her hair behind her and wiped the tears from her cheeks. She hadn’t spoken back to him in fourteen years. ‘If you touch me like this again I will kill you.’

  He laughed. ‘You are killing me.’

  She glared at him. ‘And if you lay a finger on our children I will kill you.’

  This time he stopped and looked at her. ‘You’re serious? You have no fuckin’ idea what I do for you. You’re an ungrateful little slut and you want to make trouble? Going behind my back to Danny Parnell? Really? He got what was coming. You should remember that.’

  Freya felt vomit rise in her throat. In her heart she’d known from the start why Danny was murdered.

  ‘You’re insane. Debbie was a friend.’

  ‘What sort of fuckin’ friend would come and tell Evelyn that her slutty little daughter-in-law was sleeping with Danny?’

  ‘You’re lying. I never touched Danny. Ever.’

  The cruelty in his laugh made her shudder. ‘Can’t prove it now. You know who’ll get custody of the kids?’

  ‘Mum?’ Sienna stood in the doorway, the love hearts on her pyjamas mocking Freya. ‘Mum, are you all right?’

  ‘Get back to fuckin’ bed, it’s none of your business,’ Jonno growled as he took two strides towards his daughter.

  ‘No!’ Sienna stood her ground. ‘No!’ Her voice went up as her father stalked closer.

  ‘Stop!’ Freya hurled herself across the room. ‘Don’t touch her.’ She latched onto Jonno’s raised fist, but he shook her
off and lashed out at his daughter. Sienna ducked and screamed.

  ‘Go,’ Freya yelled at her, trying to get between Sienna and Jonno. ‘Go, I can handle this.’

  Sienna shook her head, her eyes brimming with tears, her lips quivering as her father took another swipe at her and missed again.

  Freya’s heart was breaking. This was not what she wanted for her daughter, or her son. This was history repeating itself and she felt the moment her control snapped and heat flooded her in a rush. Her vision narrowed and she latched onto a vase. ‘Stop it!’ She didn’t raise her voice, but something in her animal growl made her husband falter and turn.

  He threw his head back and laughed, his defences down. His mockery set off a new wave of rage. She didn’t think or rationalise. She swung the vase with all her might. He saw it coming and it caught him on the forearm, but still it hit with enough force to make him totter back, off balance. He crashed into the corner of the table and grunted as he overbalanced completely, shock in his eyes, blood welling on his arm. Freya grabbed Sienna with her other hand and hustled her back to her bedroom.

  She locked the door and turned to her daughter. ‘Don’t get involved. I don’t want you hurt.’

  ‘But I hate him, and I hate you for letting him do it to you.’ Sienna was sobbing now. Freya gently manoeuvred her to the bed, sat them both down on the edge and wrapped her baby close. Her daughter’s tears soaked through Freya’s T-shirt, warm on her skin.

  ‘He’s a different man, baby, he doesn’t mean it.’ She had to try hard to remember the young Jonno with idealistic stars in his eyes, who’d been her knight in shining armour. He’d wanted out of his family business, talked of buying his own in the city. She’d believed him, with his gentle hands and shy smile. She still wasn’t sure why he’d married her, but she’d been grateful to find herself with a roof over her head, let alone an acre-wide bed and an unlimited credit card. Her bedroom in her parents’ flat had been about the same size as the walk-in wardrobe in Jonno’s house.

  But Jonno’s business ventures weren’t the type she’d had in mind. His new strip club was raided too many times by the cops. His mother had to bail him out. Disappointment at finding himself tied to his mother’s apron strings hadn’t sat comfortably with a man’s man.

  He’d started finding fault with her, niggling to start with. Her miscarriages seemed to underscore her failures. If he’d felt any of her debilitating grief, he didn’t show it. She’d thought Buddy would make a difference, and for a time he had. But Jonno hated being here in the bush. He’d become a city boy. And maybe his childhood spent with a father who ruled with his fists meant he would never appreciate the cattle station. Whatever the case, his attacks had become more frequent, his binge-drinking sessions running for longer – days instead of hours. She had to get out, but he was going to come after her.

  Sienna moved, looking up at her.

  ‘I hate him,’ she whispered and it burned in her face. ‘How can you make excuses for him? I don’t understand. He hurts you and I want to kill him.’

  It shocked Freya to her core. She heard echoes of her younger self. ‘Shh, baby, shh,’ she crooned. ‘It’s not for much longer. I promise.’

  With her tear-drenched eyes focused on her mother, Sienna pleaded. ‘Promise. Promise me you won’t let him hurt you any more.’ She clutched her mother’s hands, pressing them together. ‘Promise,’ she insisted.

  ‘I promise,’ Freya said. She pressed her lips to her child’s temple, smelling the sweet strawberry of some new hair product. ‘I promise, baby.’

  They sat for a minute longer with their arms around each other. Freya finally stirred. ‘You need to sleep, baby, school tomorrow and who knows what after that, with the cyclone.’

  Sienna unwound herself from her mother’s side and slid under the pink and white bedspread. With her nail polish and attitude it was too easy to forget that she was still just a child.

  Freya waited for her to fall asleep, her ears tuned to the house outside the door. The silence should have calmed her, but instead her trepidation grew with each breath. She would pay for her resistance.

  She tiptoed down the corridor and checked on Buddy. He was sleeping on his back in his racing car bed, the sheet twisted around his legs, his thumb tucked in the corner of his mouth. Spiderman peeped from near his arm. She watched his chest rise and fall under his blue top. She knew if his eyes sprang open they’d be that same sky blue. And if he saw her there he’d smile and his face would light up with mischief and that giggle would fill her heart with a warm rush of love. Satisfied he hadn’t heard anything, she left him, closing his door with a soft click.

  She squared her shoulders. Crunch time. The door to their bedroom was closed. She paused before turning the handle. She needed to face him now, not hide away until tomorrow. He was in the bathroom and she could hear him swearing. In the state he was in he’d be flat out opening a bandaid, let alone sticking it on the wound.

  He didn’t hear her coming and she waited for him to glance in the mirror. There was blood on the marble bench and splashed on one of the twin basins. He’d taken his shirt off and his jeans were still unzipped, his paunch hanging over his waistband. In fourteen years the gap between them had even widened physically. She was in better shape now than she’d ever been: toned, tanned and manicured. He’d become a slob. Yet he was quick to criticise her if she was less than immaculate.

  ‘Bitch,’ he muttered, without turning round. Their gazes locked in the mirror. ‘You could have fuckin’ killed me.’

  ‘And please don’t think I won’t. You never once asked me why I was on the streets, working as a stripper.’

  He shrugged, his expression almost wistful. ‘It didn’t matter to me. You were the hottest thing on two legs.’

  ‘My father raped me.’

  ‘Jesus.’ He looked stunned. And why wouldn’t he be? She was an angelic-looking girl when he’d met her, with long limbs, a slim waist and disproportionately large breasts. She’d been one of the top-earning strippers in the club. ‘You couldn’t have kept that secret all these years?’

  ‘Why not? He was dead.’ She waited for him to look at her again. ‘I killed him.’

  ‘Bullshit.’ But he didn’t sound so confident now.

  ‘His death was ruled an accident. He fell down drunk.’

  Jonno scoffed now. ‘So you didn’t fuckin’ kill him at all.’

  ‘He needed a push to fall down those stairs.’ Her quiet words deadened the air in the room, the running water the only sound.

  ‘Bullshit,’ he said again.

  ‘I’m moving into the kids’ wing. And I don’t care what Evelyn says. Tell her whatever the hell you want, but I’m not sharing your bed.’ She didn’t know where her courage was coming from. Maybe knowing she had a plan helped. Maybe seeing Conor and Kristy sparring yesterday had made her realise there was more to life than this sham of a marriage. All the pretty clothes in the world couldn’t make up for the hell she went through when the mood took him. Maybe the realisation her daughter was turning into her younger self terrified her more than she’d admitted. Maybe Danny Parnell’s death made her realise that tomorrow didn’t necessarily follow today.

  Jonno’s big shoulders were hunched forward as he glared at his wife in the mirror. In one hand he held the scissors he’d been trying to cut a bandage with. Her muscles quivered with tension.

  ‘We’re not finished here,’ he finally spat at her.

  ‘Oh, but we are.’ She backed out of the bathroom and gathered her nightie and hairbrush. In the guest bathroom she let the cool water run over her wrists. The gilded cage had a price tag she was no longer prepared to pay.

  The anger had left her as quickly as it had risen, and sadness dragged her down. She’d never told anyone about her father before. She’d blocked the rape from her memory for years. It was a hazy nightmare that she refused to acknowledge, but the moment she’d realised he was dead was still vivid. She hadn’t meant to kill him. She only wa
nted to get away from him, but in the half dark and the confined space of the unit block’s stairwell her fear had given her strength. He hadn’t made a sound as he fell.

  She closed her eyes and tried to forget the memories. Her father’s blood alcohol level was over 0.2. He’d been drinking himself to death since her mother had lost her battle with breast cancer. The gentle man she remembered bouncing her on his knee had disappeared, replaced by a morose and angry alcoholic who found fault with everything his daughter did. He didn’t seem to notice that Freya was going off the rails, beside herself with grief over her mother. Something in him twisted and he went from resenting how much she reminded him of his dead wife to raping her.

  She’d been placed in foster care, which lasted all of a month. She’d seen the worst that men could do, so when her foster father put his arm around her, no matter his intentions, she’d left, taking nothing but the photos of her mother. A week later she was working as a stripper and making more money than she’d ever seen. Now here she was, letting her own children down.

  But not for much longer.

  There was a quiet knock on the door. ‘Mum? Are you in there?’

  She opened the door. Her daughter rushed in, wrapping both arms around her. ‘Oh thank God, you’re alive. I woke up and you weren’t there!’

  Freya stroked her hair and summoned a laugh. ‘Of course I’m alive, and so is your dad.’

  ‘Are we going to leave?’

  ‘Yes, baby.’

  ‘When?’

  ‘Soon, but not in the face of a cyclone,’ Freya replied.

  ‘Oh.’ Sissy thought about it for a moment. ‘So do I have to go to school in the morning?’

  ‘Uh-huh. If it closes early because of the cyclone maybe you can go and stay at Abby’s place. I’ve got some things to do myself.’

  ‘So what will they do with the horses in the cyclone?’

  ‘Lock them in the stables, I guess.’ Freya realised she didn’t know the answer herself. She’d been captivated by the beauty of the property when Jonno first brought her home. A born and bred city girl, she’d stepped out of the car after nine hours of travel, the sun on her arms a warm caress after the stinging bite of Sydney’s winter westerlies, and breathed in air that tasted sweet. The infinite blue of the sky seemed to stretch forever. And she’d seen the wonderment in Sissy’s face. Leaving would be a wrench for all of them. She still had no idea where to go. She had an address for a shelter in Cairns and that was it. ‘They’ll be safe, baby. Your dad’s not going to let something happen to the animals.’