Nine Months Of Summer

1.5

1.5

Debbie called as the credits rolled on the last soap of the day and invited Yvette to a friend’s house for dinner. ‘You’ll like Tracy,’ she said. ‘She’s an artist. She’s your type.’

Yvette doubted it. She couldn’t imagine any of Debbie’s friends being her type. ‘Thanks for thinking of me. But …’

‘I’ll pick you up at five.’

‘What about Alan and the boys?’

‘Alan’s taking them on a scout camp.’

She didn’t feel like going, preferring the familiarity of her misery. Yet she couldn’t think of a way to decline so she agreed and hung up the phone.

‘Who was that?’ Leah said, switching off the television.

‘Debbie.’ She went on to explain the invitation.

‘It’ll do you good,’ Leah said.

She wasn’t convinced.

She didn’t bother to change out of the old jeans she wore as a teenager and the baggy red jumper that had become as symbolic to her as Linus’ blanket. When she heard Debbie’s ute, she left her mother half knitting, half watching a documentary, catching a glimpse of the wreckage of a boat washed up on a beach by a wild sea, the voice-over announcing at least twenty-two asylum seekers dead in the capsize. She paused then went outside, barely absorbing what she’d seen. In Malta, boat arrivals from Somalia were a frequent occurrence and never to a warm reception; the Maltese government claiming, with good foundation they thought, that the island was in the front line and if they didn’t impose a deterrent the floodgates would open. Yvette had been as indifferent then as she was now, too busy with the travails of her own life to care that much about the lives of others.

Instead, as she opened the passenger door she wondered how her mother coped with her small and dreary life. How she would never, ever, end up living like that.

‘Hi sis. So pleased to have you back,’ Debbie said fondly. ‘Truly I am.’

‘Thanks.’ She forced a smile.

‘How are you finding it here? Bit of a change from your old life, eh?’

‘It’s strange.’ She couldn’t help sounding distant.

Debbie threw the gearstick into reverse and hit the accelerator, the ute lunging backwards towards their mother’s rose bed. She braked, changed gear and hit the accelerator again, the ute charging through the paddock, juddering over the cattle grid and bumping over every rut and pothole in the track.

‘You’ll get used to it,’ Debbie said. Was she referring to her driving or Australia? Right now it was hard to decide which was the more precarious.

Debbie slowed as they neared the highway, making a right turn and cruising down the smooth tarmac to the village. ‘Maybe you’ll settle down.’

Yvette didn’t speak. They crawled through the village, Debbie accelerating hard up the hill on the other side. ‘Do you think you’ll stay here?’

‘I doubt it.’

This time Debbie made no comment.

Yvette stared out the window at the scenery: the majesty of the mountain to the north that presided over the landscape like a benevolent mother, now silhouetted against a darkening sky; the red gums and apple gums casting long shadows over undulating farmland; the granite outcrops and the cute weatherboard farm houses; and the mountains to the west slumbering beneath a wide band of soft apricot.

About five kilometres on, after a sharp bend to the left, Debbie told her to look out for a flitch-clad shack perched on a hill.

‘Nearly there,’ she said brightly.

‘So how do you know Tracy?’

‘She’s a voluntary scripture teacher at the primary school. She taught Buddhism to Peter and Simon.’

Debbie swung by the carcass of an old fridge and a rusty milk urn propped on its side on a trifurcated log, and hurtled up a long and liberally cratered driveway.

Tracy greeted them at the door. She was a stocky and weather-beaten woman with wild black hair. Dressed in a baggy, striped jumper hanging loosely beneath paint-spattered dungarees, either the sort of artist who liked to throw paint around or inept at her craft. She led them into a poorly-lit room that smelled strongly of Nag Champa. Once Yvette’s eyes adjusted to the gloom, her senses were assailed. The room was filled with drab and grungy furniture. Two battered-looking sofas faced each other across a low-lying coffee table littered with magazines and ashtrays. Propped on an easel to the left was a large canvas streaked in black and grey acrylic, with a half-formed figure of a girl, open-mouthed and clutching her face in her hands. Tracy’s interpretation of an Edvard Munch. It was ghastly. To the right was the kitchen, partitioned from the rest of the room by a red-gum bench strewn with dirty cups and plates. In the centre of the room a fire glowed in a wood heater.

‘This is a charming house,’ Yvette said with contrived enthusiasm, scanning the clutter of books, papers and junk piled on shelves, tables and chairs.

‘It is,’ a man’s voice said. She peered into the room and made out the figure of a man coming through a far doorway. Tall, with dark hair, his lean torso defined in a tight T-shirt, eyes hidden behind a pair of black-framed sunglasses. Sensing she’d been set up, she was intrigued. She picked her way through Tracy’s clutter and held out her hand.

‘Hi. I’m Yvette.’

‘I know.’ He removed his sunglasses and looked at her intently, a smile lighting his face. She felt herself blushing.

‘Yvette, this is Terry,’ Tracy called from the kitchen. ‘Terry Ford,’ she added, as if his full name would mean something. It didn’t, but the man before Yvette suddenly did. He had a broad, rugged face, with thin lips and deep-set brown eyes. Behind him, she noticed c****s of twilight filtering through gaps in the flitches. Immediately, he became the subject of a Gainsborough, a nobleman of the seventeen hundreds bedecked in rustic finery, a crosscut saw held proudly to his chest like a hunting pistol.

‘Take a seat,’ Tracy said, pointing at the sofa. ‘Dinner won’t be long.’

‘I’ll give you a hand,’ said Debbie.

The sofa was little more than a fat man’s armchair. Yvette perched on the edge of one cushion with her knees pressed together. Terry lounged on the other with his arms straddling the backrest. His knee brushed against her thigh.

‘Tracy tells me you’ve just arrived in Australia.’

‘I was living in Malta.’

‘Named after the cross?’

They both laughed.

‘It would be the other way round.’

‘Err, Malta? My geography is failing me.’

She could hardly believe his ignorance.

‘Malta is about a hundred kilometres off the coast of Sicily,’ she said, wondering at once if he even knew the whereabouts of that island. Perhaps the mention of Italy might have been more helpful. She was instantly wistful, recalling the ancient cities, the honey-coloured stone, the turquoise of the sea. She pictured Carlos’s house, the flat roof, the old stone walls and shuttered windows. And she yearned for Malta, the rugged landscape, the uninhibited freedom of her life there.

‘What were you doing there?’

What to say? Artist? Too vague. Mafia mole? Too exotic.

‘Market trader. I sold my hand-made jewellery.’ Multi-coloured necklaces and earrings made from plaited thread. She thought of the pursuit, even at the time, as her hippy phase and no doubt her response conjured in Terry’s mind an image of a barefooted nymphette with braided hair found in abundance in Kuta. Still, the handicraft sold well. And he seemed satisfied. ‘And you?’ she added, keen to steer the conversation away from her.

‘I’m an artist. A leather sculptor.’

‘Fascinating,’ she said with enthusiasm, privately regretting she’d chosen to portray herself in such a commonplace if exotic fashion.

‘You have to see his work, Yvette,’ Tracy said, handing her a glass of red wine. ‘He’s a genius.’

A genius? Yvette stifled a smile. She couldn’t imagine anyone living in this sleepy backwater as anything other than a hick.

Tracy passed round hunks of bread and plates of bean stew. Then she raised her glass with a ‘cheers’, and slugged her wine before sitting down with Debbie on the opposite sofa. The others reached for their glasses in reply.

Tracy and Debbie engaged in small talk as they nibbled through their food. Terry ate with gusto. Yvette forked from the edges of the mound on her plate, no longer hungry. Terry’s presence was making her oddly nervous. He had an allure about him, yet she wasn’t sure she found him all that attractive. He wasn’t her type. Surely he couldn’t be the fulfilment of the palm-reader’s prophecy. Besides, she thought, glancing at her sister, you can’t force fate.

Leaving Tracy and Debbie to the dishes, she followed Terry outside. The air was still and crisp. She gazed at the stars in the sharp, moonless vault of sky, struck by the luminosity and the depth of black, the void.

Terry was rolling a cigarette. ‘Tracy tells me you came here on a holiday visa.’

‘I did.’

‘And you’re planning to stay?’

‘I’m going to try.’

‘Good luck,’ he said doubtfully.

‘Yeah, thanks.’

‘Lucky you came by plane.’

She frowned. ‘What do you mean?’

He took a drag on his cigarette and inhaled deeply. ‘If you’d come by boat you’d be in detention on some mosquito-infested island, sweating it out for months, if not years.’

An image of the capsized boat flashed into her mind. ‘I’m not a refugee,’ she said coolly.

‘No. Of course not.’

They stood together in the silence, broken only by the forceful exhale of his smoke-infused breath. Then by a rustle coming from a pile of old timber stacked beside a shed. In the darkness she made out the shadowy figure of a cat slinking towards a copse of trees. She looked back at Terry, whose face was tilted heavenwards. Aware of her gaze, he smiled, and with the heel of his shoe he stubbed out his cigarette on a patch of bare earth.

‘Would you like to see my studio?’ he said casually.

‘Sounds great.’

‘I’ll call you tomorrow.’

He didn’t ask for her number.