Simmering Season Read online

  Fiona plonked down and picked up a spare water glass from the centre of the table, holding it up to the light, no doubt looking for traces of garish lipstick that would clash with the garish red lip print Fiona was about to stamp on the rim.

  ‘I only ever drink skinny soy milk. GMF,’ Fiona announced.

  ‘Well, you’ve come to the right place,’ Will called back as he wheeled over to Big Bertha. ‘Just yesterday we got ourselves a skinny, genetically modified free cow for the backyard. You guys carry on. I’ll be back once I’ve worked out how to milk a soy cow.’

  Ethne waited on the pub veranda until Fiona disappeared up the internal stairs to the guest rooms before asking Maggie, ‘Is that a blunt stick I can see poking out of your eye, love?’

  ‘I’d prefer poking my eye with a blunt stick than sitting through another meeting like that. I almost grabbed one of those chopstick things sticking out of Fiona’s hair for the job. As if Jennifer’s not difficult enough in those meetings. Did you know Fiona is too qualified to wait tables?’

  ‘Awright, then, I might have to be a bit too qualified to be cookin’ her breakfast tomorrow.’

  Maggie looked down at Ethne sitting on the old church pew, one of eight varnished cedar seats bearing three decades of scratched-in graffiti that ran the length of the wrap-around veranda. Several more pews were scattered along the upstairs guest balcony and the residence. Once taking pride of place in the Methodist church, the Reverend Lindeman had called the pews ‘souvenirs’, acquiring them after both town churches amalgamated into one.

  ‘Am I the only one silly enough to think she would pull her weight around here?’ Maggie asked Ethne. ‘I mean, everyone works. Besides, we’ll have a full house for a few days.’

  ‘A full house. Woo hoo!’

  ‘I’m not cheering yet. I have a very bad feeling about all this.’

  ‘All what?’

  ‘The reunion, the fair day, the—’

  ‘The fair Fiona?’

  ‘Argh! How could I be so—?’

  ‘So caring?’ Ethne stood and wrapped one arm around Maggie’s waist. ‘You’re just like your dad, girl, always seeing the good in people, always willing to give strays a second chance.’

  ‘I wouldn’t call Fiona Bailey-Blair a stray. She’s the most overindulged, spoilt brat …’

  ‘Doesn’t mean she’s not a little lost. Being abandoned isn’t just physical. Kids all too easily get forgotten nowadays.’

  Wives too, Maggie wanted to say.

  ‘And remember this.’ Ethne waved her index finger at Maggie a few times before turning it into the centre of her own chest. ‘Your dad took this old stray dog in how many years ago? I was about the same age as the fair Fiona and I wasn’t exactly the model of diplomacy back then—or anything else for that matter.’

  Maggie did remember the feral-looking British backpacker with the weird accent who—much to her father’s ire—had told a teenage Maggie how to calculate her cycle to avoid getting pregnant.

  For all the good that did.

  As far as Maggie knew, Ethne had never left Calingarry Crossing. She’d ended her travels, happy to live a quiet life in a small Australian country town. The Rev had paid her cash-in-hand, with food and lodgings on top. In the beginning she’d waited on tables, assisted in the kitchen and serviced the guest rooms, while Joe Lindeman and a cast of characters had manned the bar. Maggie wasn’t sure exactly when Ethne started running the place; she was just so very glad the woman had been there for her dad. When Maggie took over the pub and suggested Ethne go on the books officially, she declined. Maggie still worried about the legalities, but she hadn’t broached the subject again.

  Let sleeping dogs lie, she said to herself, looking at old Achilles splayed out on the cool veranda boards, mouth open and panting, a dangling pink tongue dancing up and down. The old mutt was never too far away from Ethne, probably because she smuggled treats from the kitchen in her pockets.

  ‘I do remember you back then,’ Maggie said.

  ‘Goes to show, the wildest of us will settle into country life eventually. It’ll work out. Fiona’s not so special. She’s a young girl given too much too soon. Now she’s seeing how the other half lives.’

  ‘I hope you’re right, my friend.’

  ‘Of course I’m right, love. What could possibly go wrong?’

  9

  The wibbly, wobbly skin under Ethne’s arms, like lily-white wing flaps that continued to wave long after she stopped polishing glasses, were in full swing as she helped Maggie re-stock the cans in the main bar.

  ‘So, how was this morning’s torture, err, I mean meeting?’ Ethne teased. ‘Day two of Fiona-phobia any better?’

  ‘That smile of yours might end up on the other side of your face when I tell you Miss I’m-qualified-to-manage-a-function suggested we add a ‘Centenary Cocktails’ event on the Friday night. A kind of welcome to Calingarry Crossing for those arriving in town early. And she suggested we have it here—at the pub.’

  ‘Did she just?’ Ethne’s wing flaps wobbled to a stop, although momentarily. ‘You said no, I assume?’

  ‘Ah, I kind of thought it might be good for business,’ Maggie added before Ethne could protest, passing her two VB stubbies. ‘The pub could do with the boost, and there’ll be quite a few people in town on the Friday night. If we don’t offer them something here, their only other option is Saddleton. Seems silly not to take advantage of a captive audience. We provide finger food and they buy their own drinks.’

  ‘You better not have said yes,’ Ethne called after Maggie, now headed for the last carton of Tooheys New from the store room.

  Yesterday’s meeting had ended with the organising team agreeing to meet again at the café this morning. Maggie had hoped to see the RSVP list for the reunion, maybe manage a glimpse of one name in particular. The list, however, remained a well-guarded secret. Jennifer seemed to think not knowing attendees in advance would add a sense of mystery and surprise. Maggie did not agree. She certainly didn’t need any more mystery and surprise in her life right now, either. With a little lobbying, and with Sara and Will onside, Maggie had achieved a small victory. She’d managed to secure a majority vote that nametags would be issued on the night of the reunion so that they might all avoid the dreaded Do you remember me? game.

  While she’d have little trouble identifying most of the students from her era, the event was turning into more than a simple class reunion. Any student or teacher, past or present—or even people with merely a fond memory of the old school—were welcome to purchase a ticket. Nametags therefore were a must in Maggie’s opinion. As if she wasn’t queasy enough thinking about the potential perfunctory platitudes she’d have to endure, like ‘You haven’t changed a bit’. What if she had and people didn’t recognise her? She certainly wasn’t like Jennifer Jones; put her in a school uniform today and she’d hardly look out of place in the school assembly.

  If only Maggie was able to magically airbrush the lines from her forehead and the dark shadows from under her eyes in time for the reunion. Body-wise, she’d managed to maintain a reasonable state of fitness. The curves she’d covered in her early child-rearing days with loose-fitting pants and over-shirts seemed less obvious when she looked in the mirror these days. Spending most mornings running up and down the stairs to the accommodation level and rolling kegs between the cellar and the car park helped.

  So did carting cartons of beer, Maggie mumbled to herself, lugging one such load into the main bar.

  What was making her think about her looks right now anyway? Was it the presence of a pert and pretty Fiona, or the fear of ending up with Ethne’s bingo arms? The ones that had come to a complete stop while she waited for Maggie.

  ‘Awright, come on,’ Ethne persisted. ‘Yes or no to this silly cocktail shindig?’

  ‘Let me put it this way …’ Maggie said, ripping the flap from the carton to avoid Ethne’s glare. ‘I said yes. But don’t worry,’ she added quickly. ‘I promise Noah an
d I will help in the kitchen. We can buy in a load of those frozen catering packs from the wholesalers: crumbed prawn cocktails, dim sims, meatballs, that kind of thing. We could whip up a few dipping sauces, a cheese platter—’

  ‘And you think whipping up wholesale party pieces will satisfy Miss Fancy-pants’ idea of cocktail snacks?’

  Maggie stopped stacking to look at Ethne. ‘It will bloody well have to. The idea might be hers, but the pub is mine.’

  ‘Ah, now you’re talkin’ my language,’ Ethne chirped.

  ‘Unless she’s planning on doing the cooking herself, frozen will have to do.’

  ‘Okay, come on, boss. There are product catalogues in the kitchen.’

  10

  Fiona

  ‘Sounds great.’ Fiona had followed the sound of a strumming guitar from her guest room, along the wrap-around veranda and down the back stairs to find Noah, sitting on an old church pew, one leg bent and resting on top of his other knee, his head lowered and focused on the placement of his fingers on guitar frets and strings.

  ‘Thanks. Was I being too loud?’ He looked up at her from under a black felt cowboy hat. ‘Just killing time. Off to Saddleton with Mum soon.’

  ‘Oh yeah?’ She finished off a text message to Molly and slid the phone deep into the front pocket of her shorts, forcing the pocket’s white lining to stick out below the frayed denim cut-offs. ‘You weren’t loud and you don’t have to stop. I was just sitting in my room texting and wondering what the hell I’m doing all the way out here.’

  It wasn’t even midday and yet the heat, combined with a horrid humid night in a stifling single room the size of her closet, had left Fiona regretting her decision to stay at Maggie’s. Although it was probably better to have her own space in the hotel—albeit her own very small space—than to have to share a house with a dead grandmother. Of course her grandmother wasn’t really dead; another of her mother’s lies that had surfaced when she came back from her stint at the Dandelion House. ‘I don’t recognise the tune,’ she said to Noah. ‘What is it?’

  ‘Something I put together with some kids from school. Needs work,’ he said without opening his eyes, one ear tilted towards his strumming fingers.

  The guy was cute in a weird sort of way and not bad on the guitar, which he seemed more interested in—a fact that annoyed Fiona, making her wonder about his age. He was clearly still at school. Probably in his final year.

  It wasn’t that long ago that Fiona and Molly would cut a seductive path through the Bondi Beach crowd each Friday to set up their towels near to where the Year 12 boys from the local high school hit the beach for sports afternoon. The girls would massage blockout lotion on each other’s bodies and drop their tops under the ogling eyes of students and their male teachers. Then the girls would laugh about it all weekend.

  ‘So, what’s keeping you here?’ he asked.

  ‘I beg your pardon?’

  ‘I said what’s keeping you if you don’t want—’

  ‘I heard what you said.’

  ‘Then why—?’

  ‘God, anyone ever tell you you’re annoying?’

  ‘Feel free to leave. Anytime.’ The kid kept plucking out a tune, unfazed, while Fiona swatted bugs, wiped pooling sweat from her top lip and brow, and wondered how it was that every freaking fly was somehow managing to find her face. What wouldn’t she give for an air-conditioned shopping mall or the cooling breeze off Sydney Harbour that sometimes called for a sweater in the middle of summer? Even her moisturiser had turned to liquid this morning, in the jar and now on her face.

  Nothing was keeping her here. She could leave today. She could get back into her air-conditioned car and drive straight back to her life and to a father who loved her.

  A father? Ha!

  She turned her back on Noah, looking through the windows of the pub, glimpsing the main street and trying to picture her mother in Calingarry Crossing—the mysterious place she and Fiona’s grandfather had kept secret until autumn two years ago when Amber had walked away from her city life and family. At the time her mother’s leaving had hardly registered, a tiny blip on Fiona’s radar. When Amber came home everything was different. She was different. A woman on some bizarre mission, desperate to make up and be a better person, a better wife, a better mother. The myriad photographs of Fiona’s baby brother, like shrines Amber left scattered throughout the house for fifteen years in case any of them dared forget Christopher, slowly disappeared. All of a sudden Fiona rated in Amber’s life.

  Fiona and her mother had started to reconnect, mending their ragged relationship a single stitch at a time—Fiona cautiously. She’d been on the outside for too long, a witness to her mother’s rollercoaster life and her battle to stay beautiful. Despite Phillip’s efforts, Calingarry Crossing had been the only thing to bring Amber out of her spiralling lifestyle of pills and booze, to leave behind the reluctant socialite, the artificial wife, the crap mother.

  Now, crap or not, her mother was gone.

  ‘I like your sound,’ she said when Noah stopped playing and laid his guitar down. ‘So this place you’re headed to soon—Saddleton. What is it exactly? Sounds like something you get from riding a horse for too long.’

  Noah squinted up at her from under his cowboy hat, his mouth in a crooked smile. ‘Saddleton is a place, a town—biggest one around. You prob’ly drove right by the turnoff. The hospital is there. My Pop is in hospital, kind of.’

  ‘You two close?’

  Noah shrugged. ‘He’s my grandfather, but he doesn’t really know who I am. You close to your granddad?’

  ‘With mine you don’t get a choice. Thinks he’s the centre of the freakin’ universe.’ Fiona wasn’t about to admit that the man who’d been more important than her mother while growing up was turning out to be a major control freak and really pissing her off. She pinched the front of her shirt between a thumb and index finger, fluffing it about, letting air circulate over sweaty skin. ‘How do you people live out here with these temperatures? It’s not even summer.’

  Noah shrugged and picked up his guitar again, as if the instrument was some kind of security blanket. ‘You get used to it, I guess. No good complaining about something you can’t do anything about.’

  ‘What do you country kids do all day? Besides sit around strumming your ghee-tars.’

  Noah plucked at the strings, picking out a short country jig. He ended with an exaggerated ‘Yee ha!’, a stomp of his feet and a smart alec smile. ‘By the way, I’m not exactly a country kid.’

  ‘Is that right?’ She did wonder about the confusing concoction of baggy black shorts, a New Moon: Team Edward Sucks T-shirt, and a felt cowboy hat.

  ‘Grew up in Sydney. Only came back to sell the pub after Pop got sick. It’s just taking forever to sell.’

  ‘I’d completely die if someone forced me to live out here. Don’t you just miss everything?’

  Noah shrugged. ‘Like?’

  ‘Shops, restaurants, nightclubs, theatre … Need I go on?’

  ‘Not really into much of that stuff. Besides, we got our very own restaurant in the pub and Ethne cooks as good as any place. There’s a cinema in Saddleton. Did you want to see a movie?’

  ‘Not quite what I meant. I hear your mum’s planned a dinner with my grandmother one night. A good ol’ sit down around a giant table of cook’s re-fried pub-style food so we can all pretend to chat like old friends. I assume you’ll be there. I could do with a real friend.’

  Noah strummed a chord and sang a few lines of the song: ‘You’ve Got a Friend’.

  ‘Very cute,’ Fiona grimaced. ‘And I’m not short of friends usually, but I don’t want to be left alone at a table of country hicks.’

  ‘You know what, Fiona?’ Noah started, then stopped.

  ‘What? Did I say something wrong?’

  ‘It doesn’t matter.’

  ‘And by the way, you can call me Fi if you like.’

  ‘Nah, reminds me too much of Fifi. I knew a girl at school
back in Sydney with a fancy French poodle she called Fifi.’

  ‘Yeah, well, what sort of name is Noah? Does having a biblical name make you a good boy?’

  ‘For a start I’m not a boy.’

  ‘Oh yeah? Exactly how old are you anyway?’

  ‘I’ll be eighteen, soon.’

  ‘Kinda cute for seventeen, then. Got a girlfriend?’

  ‘Nope.’

  ‘Boyfriend?’ Noah looked at her as if she had two heads. ‘Just checking.’

  ‘You got a boyfriend?’ he asked.

  ‘Fiancé.’ She thrust her left hand under Noah’s nose to show off the diamond solitaire ring.

  ‘Aren’t you a bit young to be getting married?’

  ‘I’m almost twenty-two.’

  ‘That makes you still twenty-one then.’ He grinned.

  ‘What would you know anyway?’

  ‘Maybe not much, except there’s no way I’m hooking up with anyone until I’ve done everything there is to do.’

  ‘We have plans to do everything together. Luke is very ambitious. My grandfather introduced us. Granddad says he’s going places,’ she said, picking at the fire-engine-red polish on one thumbnail with the other thumbnail. ‘Anyway, since you’re Noah, and Noah saved all creatures great and small … He did, didn’t he?’

  ‘Err … I guess. What are you getting at?’

  ‘Well, you Noah, will soon have the pleasure of saving your favourite French poodle from a flood of bland food and boring conversation at that dinner. So there. If you do that, I’ll let you help me out with something tomorrow. Deal?’ She turned on her heels without waiting for a response. She didn’t have to wait. No one said no to Fiona Bailey-Blair. ‘I’m off,’ she called, heading back to the stairs. ‘Gotta get polishing my best boot-scooting boots in case we all go line dancing after dinner. Toodles.’

  Back in her room Fiona scrolled the contacts list on her iPhone for Luke, punching out a text message: Being here sux. Can we pls not do this?

  11

  Maggie