Other Side of the Season Page 13

  ‘You’ve obviously helped David.’

  ‘Me? Nah, I can’t take any credit. He’s done it all himself. All I do is kick butt and pick him up when he’s down by reminding him how far he’s come. We get on well because neither of us operates on self-pity. There!’ she said victoriously while taking a swipe at the now freed mobiles. ‘Never give up.’

  ‘You said before that he used to be in a wheelchair, right?’

  ‘Yeah,’ Pearl climbed back into the hammock and set it into a swing. ‘Like I said, I haven’t seen him use a chair for ages. It might sound strange, but in some ways David’s been pretty lucky. Physical therapy is expensive, but his family could afford it. If he’d had to rely on what small towns like this provided back then, travelling to and from the hospital in Coffs Harbour, I don’t think he’d have recovered anywhere near as quickly, or made such incredible progress. His parents really pushed him hard, too. According to my dad, his old man was tough as nails and didn’t tolerate weakness, and his mum encouraged him to take up art again when all he could do was mope. He was devastated when she died a while back.’

  ‘His mum died as well?’ Sid recalled he had mentioned too many losses, too close together. The poor man! Had she known about all this she might have understood why he’d come across so cynical and embittered, and why he kept to himself most of the time. ‘What happened to his mum?’

  ‘I don’t know exactly. She’d been in hospital for a couple of days, some minor procedure. She never came back home. I never asked for the detail.’

  ‘How sad,’ was all Sid said, having been nosy enough.

  ‘The family suffered more than their fair share of tragedy. My mum reckons David’s accident splintered his mum’s heart, and what broke it was her eldest son disappearing soon after, and without saying a word. I think their father blamed him for David’s accident.’

  ‘Did he do it? Was he responsible for his brother’s condition?’

  Pearl shrugged. ‘Nothing says guilt like running away.’

  ‘Wow.’ Sidney was having trouble keeping up. ‘And that was fairly recent, then?’

  ‘No, no, David’s accident was yonks ago. He wasn’t even twenty.’

  Sid felt a wave of relief wash over her. There was no connection between her grandfather’s incarceration and David’s injuries. ‘I know all about fractured families,’ she said, nodding at Pearl to go on while she repositioned a chair into the sun before sitting.

  ‘David and his dad didn’t exactly see eye to eye either, but they got on okay. Ted established the B & B. He was a savvy businessman, and he’d just bought the neighbouring plantation for an absolute song, right before a massive cyclone hit Queensland and wiped out the banana crop up there. New South Wales bananas went from six dollars a box to a hundred and twenty dollars, and the growers around here made a killing. The Greenhill plantation had hit the jackpot, but it was a one-season wonder. Afterwards, old Ted shifted focus to other moneymaking ventures. A lot of people thought he was greedy, but Dad reckons he wasn’t a bad bloke, just the type constantly on the lookout for opportunities to make a buck. He did plenty of good things for this town. Shame a lot of folks forget that.’

  ‘What sort of things?’

  ‘For a start, he was the one behind the town’s name change. This place used to be called Dinghy Bay.’

  ‘Yes, yes, I heard that. I was chatting to a local fisherman the other day who seemed none too happy about it.’

  Pearl chuckled. ‘I can guess who that might’ve been. Most people said the new name made sense. Tourists, especially overseas people, would always pronounce it Dingy Bay, as in dull and gloomy. The name Watercolour Cove is much more appealing and more fitting.’

  ‘So why didn’t Ted and David see eye to eye?’ Sid asked.

  ‘Ted envisaged a fancy B & B, whereas David wanted something less formal, a place where he could hold workshops or school camps for disadvantaged kids from regional areas.’

  ‘Ted won?’

  ‘Ted always won. Another reason why he eventually got lots of local noses out of joint.’

  ‘If you don’t mind me saying, David hardly comes across as kid-friendly.’

  Pearl smiled. ‘He has bad days. He’s not as grouchy as he seems. He’s actually a bit of a softy–and like I said, he’s really taken to you.’

  ‘He certainly didn’t seem too impressed with me at first.’

  ‘You might have taken him by surprise.’ The sun shifted, catching Pearl’s face in its rays. She sat up and hung both legs over the side of the hammock to face Sid. ‘And I’m not referring to your rendezvous in the storeroom. You’re a long way from the caretaker types he’s had here in the past–everything from happy hippies to grey nomads. He’s had little to do with any of them.’

  ‘Yet he trusts anyone with his gallery.’

  ‘CCTV and good accounting technology,’ Pearl said. ‘Cameras everywhere. He’s not terribly trusting–for good reason–until he gets to know you.’

  ‘I see, well, I must remember to smile for the cameras. Speaking of smiling, I can’t seem to wipe the silly grin off my brother’s face these days.’

  ‘Oh yeah?’ Pearl turned her face down towards her lap and picked at the frayed hole in the knee of her jeans. ‘That’s good, then.’

  22

  Watercolour Cove, 2015

  A loud vroom, vroom, vroooooom split the normally peaceful mountain air, the roar loud enough to stop Sidney mid sales pitch on the giant dragonfly garden feature made from recycled metal.

  ‘Will you excuse me a minute?’ she asked the couple, before treading purposefully back through the garden to the gallery.

  David must have been disturbed by the same sound, as he was in the distance, making his way down the path from the cottages.

  ‘What was that?’ Sid called to him, arms wide, palms turned towards the sky.

  The engine noise had faded and the mountain was silent again.

  ‘Sounded like a motor bike,’ David yelled. ‘Someone’s taken a spill on the road up and the throttle’s stuck, I suspect. We get the occasional thrill seeker on the plantation road.’

  ‘Thrill seeker? Oh no, no. Jake!’ Sid was running now. ‘I saw him on the quad bike earlier. The trailer was loaded with chopped wood. I told him to take it easy.’ Sid’s pace quickened and she turned towards the plantation and the rough track that skirted around the edge.

  ‘Be careful, Sidney,’ she heard David call. ‘It can be slippery after rain.’

  She heeded the warning, but Sid couldn’t slow down. ‘Jake? Jake, are you there?’ she screamed. ‘Jake, answer me.’

  ‘Sid!’ Her brother’s voice floated up from somewhere amid the maze of banana plant trunks. That’s when she saw the deep ruts gouged out of the mud and tyre tracks that snaked for several metres before disappearing over the edge.

  ‘Jake! Oh my God. Don’t move.’

  ‘You’ve found him?’ David called.

  ‘Yes, yes, I can see him, about twenty metres down the hill. I can get to him, but you’d better call for help.’

  ‘No, Sid, don’t try. Remember the baby. You don’t want to fall,’ Jake yelled. ‘I can wait for the ambos, or the SES blokes, except . . .’

  ‘Except what?’

  ‘My leg’s bleeding, Sid, and I don’t think it’s good.’

  ‘Then hold on. I am coming to you.’ The slope was steep, but not impossible, except rain overnight had made the normally hardened groundcover slick. Her first step was a slide, but she righted herself using the banana plants as a handhold. Turned out the strategy was a good one, and by about the fifth tree she’d hugged, Sid was at her brother’s side and surveying the damage.

  At first it had looked really bad. The quad bike was on one side and pressed against the trunk where Jake lay in pain. The trailer was separated from its hitch and the load of logs strewn across the area.

  ‘Hey, sis,’ he said. ‘I’m not feeling so good.’

  ‘How is he?’ came another v
oice from the top of the hill. ‘Let me help you.’ The customer from the gallery had caught up and was standing alongside David. Sid wasn’t going to refuse his offer. She needed to shift the bike to reach Jake’s leg.

  ‘The gash looks deep,’ she yelled back up the hill. ‘He’s losing blood and I can’t get to him unless . . .’ She tried to nudge the bike again.

  ‘Stand back,’ the customer said on approach. He was a hunky young guy in his early thirties, a landscaper–one who did actually look a lot like Jamie Durie, only taller. He was also used to lifting heavy weights, because he soon had the bike moved enough for Sid to reach the lower part of her brother’s leg where a jagged wound, about seven centimetres long, oozed red.

  ‘How’s it look, sis?’

  ‘Oozing is good. No major vessels,’ Sid told him, trying to recall the first-aid training she’d insisted every employee at the design studio undertake. ‘What did you do, Jake? What happened?’

  ‘I was being careful, sis, I swear. I think it was the trailer. Maybe the load didn’t help. Felt like the wheels lost traction and skidded sideways in the mud. Took the bloody bike over the edge with it and down we all went.’

  ‘Did it roll on you?’ She prayed not. ‘Did you hit your head?’

  ‘Maybe my head. Hard to tell with a bloody helmet on.’ Her brother was trying to make jokes, but Sid could see he was losing colour and she feared he would soon lose consciousness. She couldn’t wait. She had to do something now.

  Sid had reefed off the lightweight jumper she wore and now fumbled with the buttons on the cotton shirt before peeling it off to use on the leg gash.

  ‘Do you want me to get him up the hill for you?’ the customer asked.

  Sid looked from the man, to the bleeding leg, to her brother, who by now was looking increasingly disoriented. ‘Jake? Jake?’ she shouted. ‘Jake, can you hear me? Can you tell me where it hurts?’

  ‘My head. My head definitely hurts.’

  ‘What about your leg? Can you feel pain anywhere else?’

  He seemed to think for a moment. ‘No. Nothing. Should I?’

  ‘Don’t whatever you do move him, Sid,’ she heard David call down. ‘The local SES crew are already at the gate and there’s an ambulance coming from Coffs Harbour. Tell him to hold on. Tell him he’ll be fine.’

  Sid only realised then that she was crying.

  23

  Watercolour Cove, 2015

  ‘Is that you, Sidney? The line is not good.’

  ‘Hi, Mum.’ Her mother’s tone was enough to make Sid stall. ‘How’s the weather in Melbourne?’

  ‘About time you called again,’ is all Natalie said. ‘Tasha and I have been checking the local Byron Bay weather. When you called the other day you said the temperatures had been absolutely balmy compared to Melbourne. And they have. Lucky you! We’re freezing down here and Tasha is about to pour hot tea.’

  ‘The weather, yes,’ Sid repeated a little absent-mindedly. ‘The weather is good. Say hi to Tasha for me.’

  ‘Sid says hello.’

  A good friend of the family for more than twenty years, Sid knew, right about now, Tasha would be blowing kisses at the telephone receiver.

  ‘She’s sending you a return kiss, Sid,’ Natalie confirmed. ‘Now, tell me . . . How’s the trip going? Had enough of your brother already, I suspect.’ A scratching sound suggested her mother was covering the phone with her palm. ‘What did I tell you, Tash? She’s simply not the Byron Bay type. Too serious, aren’t you, Sidney?’

  ‘Mum?’ Sid wanted her mother to focus on the telephone conversation. ‘We didn’t get to Byron Bay. And before you have a fit, I can explain. But first I have to tell you about Jake.’

  ‘I knew you two wouldn’t last five minutes. Tasha, darling, sounds like Jake’s up to his old tricks,’ Natalie said.

  ‘What’s my boy done now?’ Tasha’s squeaky voice travelled through the receiver.

  ‘Sid, darling, Tasha’s asking the same. What’s Jake done this time?’

  Sid was used to hearing her mother ask that question about her brother, usually over the telephone. If he wasn’t being put on detention at school, he was being sidelined in sports for being a little too boisterous. Exuberance had always been Natalie’s defence. The family had received more than a few phone calls from the emergency waiting room, too, as Jake had another limb set in plaster. While as a boy he’d tended to bounce more often than not, rarely suffering serious damage, such calls would make any mother anxious. And Natalie, for all her faults, had tried to be a good mother.

  ‘I can’t hear you, Sidney. Hello? Tasha, I think I’ve lost her.’

  ‘No, Mum, I’m here. It’s . . . Oh, Mum, I’m trying to tell you. I’m sorry. I’m so, so sorry.’

  ‘Shh, Tash, something sounds wrong with Sid,’ her mother was saying. ‘Tell me what’s wrong?’

  Sid took a deep breath. ‘There’s been an accident, Mum.’

  ‘Oh my God! Your car? You crashed your car?’

  ‘No, no, not a car accident. A Jake accident. He’s okay,’ she added.

  Natalie sighed, anxiety giving way to an angry rant. ‘Oh, for goodness sake. What’s happened this time?’

  ‘He was riding a bike on the property where we’re staying.’

  ‘A bicycle?’ Natalie sounded relieved. ‘Will that boy ever grow up?’

  As a youngster Jake had been typical of boys: competitive, into all kinds of sports, indestructible and invincible. There hadn’t been a weekend when he was young that their mother didn’t find herself sanitising skin scrapes and putting bandages on broken blisters. Family holidays usually involved a father and son off bushwalking, kayaking or fishing, while mother and daughter discovered the sights and smells of the national park, putting their experiences on paper with pastels–little conversation required.

  ‘Oh, for goodness sake! Jake fell off a bike is all.’ Natalie updated Tasha on the conversation. ‘And I thought we were finally past him falling off things–except for last Christmas and his drunken skateboard party trick.’

  ‘It’s more serious than that, Mum. He came off a quad bike. The road was steep and slippery. There’d been rain overnight and–’

  ‘Oh, my goodness. Put him on the phone,’ Natalie ordered.

  ‘What?’

  ‘I said put Jake on the phone.’

  Silence.

  ‘Sidney? I want to talk to your brother, please.’

  ‘Mum, he . . . he’s okay. He’s talking–make that complaining. You know Jake!’

  ‘Yes, I see.’ Natalie’s angst seemed to lessen. ‘So, you’ll be heading home soon, I assume? Oh, hang on, Sidney. Tasha, what was that?’ There were sounds and mumblings.

  ‘There’s a loudspeaker button, Nat,’ Tasha was saying in the background. ‘Give me the phone.’

  ‘Mum? Mum, what’s going on? I’m trying to tell you–’

  ‘Yes, Sidney, I’m here. Tasha is putting the phone on speaker so she can hear.’

  ‘Hello, Sidney darling,’ Tasha’s earsplitting voice forced the phone away from Sid’s ear. The loudspeaker was clearly working.

  ‘Sidney, put Jake on the phone,’ Natalie was saying.

  ‘I’m not with him right now. Hello, Aunty Tasha,’ Sid added, finding the dual conversation distracting.

  ‘Then tell me when you’ll be coming home,’ her mother said. ‘I’ll have Tash arrange a flight back to Sydney. Tash, book me a flight home.’

  ‘We can’t come home yet,’ Sid said quickly. ‘They’re admitting him. At the moment the doctors are doing tests.’

  ‘Tests? What sort of tests, Sidney? Where are you? I’m coming straight away. Which hospital? Byron? Ballina? Lismore?’

  ‘We’re kind of closer to Coffs, but at the Pacific Coast Base Hospital. But Mum, you don’t have to–’

  ‘Tasha? Change of plans. I need a flight to Coffs Harbour. Sidney, Tasha’s booking the flight now. I’ll be there as soon as I can.’

  ‘Mum, please, I’m sur
e you don’t need to worry. I can let you know when they tell me more. Maybe wait until the scans of his spine are done and the doctors have–’

  ‘Sidney!’ Natalie snapped. ‘When you have children of your own you’ll realise how futile it is to tell a mother not to worry, especially when she hears any combination of the words: son, spine, scan. Go ahead, Tasha, book the next available flight. I’m going to Coffs Harbour.’

  Part 2

  24

  Pacific Coast Base Hospital, 2015

  Her daughter rushed through the sliding doors of the hospital and straight into Natalie’s arms, reminding her of the many times Sidney had greeted her father with the same eagerness when he returned from a work trip each fortnight. But this was not one of those happy-to-see-you greetings. Sidney promptly burst into tears and Natalie stiffened, fearing bad news.

  ‘Oh, Mum, I really am glad you came.’

  ‘Of course, Sid, now dry your eyes and take me to your brother. Come on,’ Natalie urged. ‘What’s the latest?’

  They walked and Sidney talked, filling her mother in on the examinations and procedures Jake had undergone so far–mostly precautionary.

  ‘Jake’s been amazing. He’s got such a positive attitude. Pearl said often that’s all it takes for a person to get back on their feet and walking.’

  ‘Who is Pearl?’ Natalie paused to let an orderly pushing a bed pass. ‘And what do you mean, get back to walking? You said he fell off a bike and hit his head. I thought the CAT scan was a precaution. Please, tell me he was wearing a helmet.’ They hurried on towards Jake’s room, Sidney just in front and leading the way. ‘Sidney, did you hear me? Talk to me.’