One Summer Between Friends Read online

  Sam looked at Sarah. ‘He thinks five to seven days in hospital.’

  ‘I was just getting to that,’ Dot said, sounding put out. ‘Whose story is this anyway?’

  ‘Yours,’ he said, leaning back in his chair, arms crossed over his chest.

  The trolley rattled closer, vague wafts of roast chicken crossed with tuna casserole drifting down the hallway. ‘I do hope that’s the lunch trolley,’ said Dot. ‘Soggy toast for breakfast and nothing but a biscuit for morning tea after having to fast for hours—it’s appalling service here. I could eat the leg off a chair.’

  ‘I don’t think our insurance covers us for that.’

  ‘For heaven’s sake,’ snapped Dot, ‘I wasn’t serious!’

  Sarah caught her father winking at her. Her second wink of the day. She felt the bubbles rise in her blood again. Her mum was going to be okay and there was so much to look forward to. It was still a great day, despite this minor hiccup.

  A few moments later a catering woman bearing a tray stopped at the door, checking the number before addressing the patient. ‘Mrs Rooney?’

  ‘You’ve found her,’ said Dot, lighting up like a Christmas tree. ‘How lovely of you to bring my lunch.’

  ‘All part of the service,’ said the woman, putting the tray on the table and carefully manoeuvring it closer.

  ‘I was just telling my family I could eat the leg off a chair, I’m so hungry.’

  ‘Well, now you won’t need to. Will you be all right from here?’

  ‘Yes, thank you. But please leave your name and number, because I’d love to take you home with me.’

  ‘Enjoy,’ the woman said with a laugh, turning to Sarah on her way out. ‘Your mother?’ Sarah nodded. ‘She’s lovely, isn’t she? I wish all the patients were so delightful.’

  Sarah gave her a thin smile. ‘She has her moments.’ Unfortunately, mostly with strangers who didn’t know her.

  Sam was busy uncovering plates as the trolley lady disappeared. ‘Do you want me to stay and feed you, Dorothy?’

  ‘Good heavens, I’m not an invalid,’ Dot said, batting her husband’s hands away. ‘No, you and Sarah go and find something for lunch. And don’t worry, I won’t run off with the surgeon while you’re gone.’

  ‘She actually made a joke,’ Sarah said to her father as they walked the tortuous route towards the cafeteria.

  ‘She still cracks the odd one,’ her father replied. ‘Mostly to her customers rather than to me.’

  ‘Or me.’

  Sam sighed, pushing open the cafeteria door for her. The hum of conversation over the scrape of chairs and the clatter of hospital crockery and cutlery greeted them. ‘I know she can be difficult, love.’

  ‘I know. It would just be nice one day to have a conversation with my mother that didn’t involve her sticking a fork in my eye.’ But she managed to smile as she said it, and her dad gave a rueful smile in reply as they joined the queue. He passed her a tray.

  ‘So,’ Sarah said when they were seated at a table, ‘five to seven days doesn’t sound that long for a broken hip.’

  ‘That’s what I thought too, but that’s just until she’s released. That bit’s not the problem,’ Sam said. ‘It’s what happens when we get your mum home.’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  He unwrapped his ham and salad roll, muttering while he pulled off the top and fished out a couple of rogue kale leaves. ‘The occupational therapist called in shortly before you arrived. Your mum won’t be able to do half of what she normally does for a while, so she’s going to need someone to help her in the shop. Could be six months before she’s back to rights.’

  ‘That long? What about Deirdre? Can she do a few more hours?’

  ‘Well, she could, except she’s no spring chicken herself and she’s already on half time. And with a new grandie coming in a few weeks, she’s already been making noises about winding back her hours.’

  ‘Wow.’ Sarah peeled back the top of her yoghurt, scooped it over her fruit salad and stabbed a piece of rockmelon. ‘Well, there must be plenty of people on the island looking for work.’

  ‘Sarah—’

  ‘It could be an opportunity for someone,’ she said. ‘Someone young who doesn’t want to be forced to head to the mainland for work. It’s such a drag when you have to leave.’

  ‘Look, Sarah, the thing is …’

  She looked up from scoping out the next piece of fruit. ‘What?’

  ‘Would it be at all possible?’ he said. ‘I mean, I know your job is important to you, but …’

  And Sarah felt a cluster of spiders crawl down her spine as she realised where this was heading. She put her fork down. ‘But what?’

  ‘Your mother thought that you might be able to do it. That you might have some leave saved up and you can come home for a while.’

  Her breath hissed in through her teeth. Her mother knew all the reasons why that would never happen. ‘Why would she possibly think that?’

  ‘Well, because you’re family.’

  Family? This was supposed to be her day. Her day! When every career dream and aspiration she had finally came true. Instead, a lifetime of injustice boiled over inside her. She’d always been the one who was called upon when someone responsible was needed, whether to help out in the shop or to sit with Gramma or Gramps for the night, because she was more sensible and her brother was too young.

  ‘No,’ Sarah said, knowing she had to shut the lid on this hard and fast. ‘Sorry, Dad, but it’s not possible.’

  ‘You won’t at least think about it?’

  ‘There’s nothing to think about. I can’t do it.’ I won’t do it. ‘I can’t just walk away from my job, especially not now. You’ll have to ask Danny.’

  Her father looked at the table and shook his head like a man searching for an answer. ‘That won’t work.’

  ‘Why not? You are going to ask him, aren’t you? Because he happens to be family too. And he already works as a shop assistant—he’s got the personality for it. He’d be perfect in the shop. The customers would love him.’

  Her dad sighed and rubbed the back of his neck. ‘I know he’s your mum’s favourite, love, but even your mum thinks he’s about as useful as tits on a bull when it comes to anything practical.’

  ‘Then she should have got him to work in the shop like I had to. He could have learnt. He still could learn given he works in retail now. But instead, she expects me to do her bidding the minute she clicks her fingers.’

  ‘Well, you are the oldest.’

  Sarah sat back in her chair. ‘For heaven’s sake, Danny’s thirty-five years old. That argument might have cut it twenty years ago when he was just a brat, but not anymore.’

  ‘I know,’ Sam said, nodding, looking exhausted. ‘I know.’

  ‘Look, Dad,’ she said, because she knew her dad was the pacifier in the family, and being stuck in the middle was not always a comfortable place to be, ‘maybe someone should actually ask Danny. He’s been living away from home for more than ten years. He’s bound to have grown up a bit.’

  ‘One would expect so, but it’s not just serving customers, is it? It’s the stock control and accounts as well. And you’re the one with accounting qualifications—you could do it in your sleep. And, well, Dot thinks you’re the answer.’

  ‘You should ask him. I’m sure he could handle stock control; it’s not that big a deal. And who knows, he might actually like a six-month break on the island.’

  Her father heaved another sigh as he rested his elbows on the table and held his hands out. ‘Okay, you’re right, you’re right. But don’t you see? If Danny did come, he’d expect to bring Silvio with him, and you know it would kill your mother knowing they were sharing a room.’

  ‘So that’s what it really came down to?’ Sarah shook her head. ‘Don’t tell me she still hasn’t given up on her dream for him to find a nice girl and get married and give her the grandchildren she’s so desperate for?’

  ‘Something
like that.’

  ‘She’s in denial, that’s what she is.’

  He nodded. ‘It hit her hard, when he brought Silvio home that Christmas, remember?’

  Sarah remembered all right. They hadn’t had to wait for New Year’s Eve to watch the fireworks. ‘He might have warned you that he was planning on bringing Silvio.’ But that was Danny, always looking for maximum shock value. She just wished he’d stopped at fart jokes. ‘And she wonders why he chooses to live so far away.’

  Sam put his salad roll, barely touched, on his tray. ‘Look, Sarah, I know it’s asking a lot, but could you at least give it some thought? You don’t have to make a decision right away. Think it over.’

  She took a deep breath, wondering why they were still having this conversation. ‘It is asking a lot, now that you mention it. You’re expecting me to drop everything for six months to look after her.’

  He held his hands up. ‘You wouldn’t have to look after her. You’d mostly be in the shop while she recuperates. She’ll have a lot of physio to do too, and I know that if you were there in the shop, you’d stop her from taking on too much.’

  Sarah let her head drop back, noticing the chequerboard of ceiling tiles above her head, some stained brown in places from who knows what, others askew in their brackets, dirty smudges left by the hands of some tradesman who couldn’t be bothered to put them to rights or care how they looked after he was gone. It struck her that her life was a bit like those ceiling tiles: stained in places and with other bits all askew. Over the years, she’d done her best to disguise the blemishes. To appear normal. In Sydney, she could get away with it. But if she went back to the island, she’d be exposed to everything and everyone she’d ever tried to forget. All her smudges and stains in plain sight.

  Today’s meeting was the chance to finally make something of herself—by herself. Could she say no to that? She looked back at her fruit salad and stabbed at a piece of apple with her fork, trying to find some enthusiasm for it, before giving up and pushing the bowl away.

  ‘I’m sorry, Dad. But no.’

  ‘I’m so sorry, Sarah. I know you’ve got a very important job.’

  ‘I have.’ She licked her lips. She didn’t want to tell him about the offer she was expecting. She didn’t want to jinx herself. But she had to make her father understand that she wasn’t just being selfish and that what he was asking was impossible. ‘Dad, there’s a partnership meeting later this afternoon—and I have it on pretty good authority that I’m going to be offered a partnership in the firm. There’s no way I can simply walk away from that. It’s what I’ve been working towards for too long.’

  Her father’s eyes misted over, although whether from pride or disappointment, Sarah couldn’t tell. She settled on thinking it must be a mix of both.

  ‘A partnership. I can see how that would change things. Congratulations, love, you’ve worked so hard for this.’

  ‘I have.’ No pretence. No false modesty. She’d worked her arse off for Fortescue, Robbins and Lancaster, and it was time that she was rewarded for it. ‘But you know more than anyone that it’s more than just this promotion.’

  ‘I know she’s not easy, so help me I do. But she’s still your mother.’

  Her reluctance to go back to the island wasn’t only down to her mother, but that part was the easiest for her father to understand, and with good reason. ‘The mother who’s never forgiven me for being unable to bear her a grandchild.’

  Her father reached his hands across the table to take hers, his brow furrowed, and for the first time Sarah realised there was more than tiredness infusing her father’s features. He looked older than she remembered, more crumpled.

  ‘I’m sorry, Sarah. She’ll get over it one day.’

  ‘She hasn’t shown any sign of getting over it so far.’ And while she could understand why her mother might find it hard to come to terms with something that she’d found so difficult to deal with herself, it was the implication that Sarah must have done something to have caused her infertility that stung the most. That she was somehow to blame. Always, Dot had to find someone or something to blame.

  ‘Ah, well,’ Sam said, clearing his throat, ‘I s’pose we’ll come up with something.’

  Sarah didn’t say anything; there was nothing left to say. She looked at her watch, and then at her father’s lunch. ‘Don’t you want to finish that?’

  He shook his head and glanced at her abandoned fruit salad. ‘We both seem to have lost our appetites. Come on, we better be getting back to your mum.’

  ‘What took you so long?’ Dot said, when Sarah and Sam returned to the room. ‘My tray got taken away ages ago.’

  ‘The cafeteria was busy,’ Sam said, settling back into the visitor’s chair and picking up the paper where it was folded to the crossword, fishing a pen from his top pocket. ‘It took a while to get served.’

  ‘Did you have something nice?’

  ‘Not really. A soggy roll.’

  ‘So what did you talk about?’

  He wasn’t so quick to answer this one.

  ‘Oh, this and that,’ said Sarah noncommittally. ‘We had a nice catch-up, didn’t we, Dad?’

  ‘We did. It was very pleasant.’

  ‘How lovely,’ Dot said, and it was clear that she thought it was anything but. It took another ten minutes of discussion about her mother’s lunch, how disappointing it had been, and how the only highlight had been the return of the lovely lunch lady and how much she’d love to visit Lord Howe Island herself, before Dot turned, exasperated, to her husband.

  ‘So, did you ask her?’

  ‘Ask me what?’ Sarah said, as she watched her father shrink further into his seat.

  ‘If you’ll come home and look after the shop. The therapist said it could take six months for me to be back to full mobility.’

  ‘Why don’t you just ask me yourself?’

  ‘Because if I ask you, you’ll say you’re too busy.’

  ‘Well, yes, you know I’m busy. Have you asked Danny if he can do it?’

  ‘Why would I ask Danny?’

  ‘Because he’s your son, and if you’re going to ask your daughter to put her life and career on hold for six months, don’t you think it’s reasonable that you should ask your son too?’

  ‘Here I am, lying in hospital with a broken hip, and you’re telling me what I should or should not do?’

  ‘Calm down, Dot. She’s not telling you what to do.’

  ‘You keep out of this, Samuel Rooney. If it wasn’t for that handrail, none of this would have happened.’ Dot turned to her daughter. ‘Just think, six months on the island—you can catch up with your old friends again. It’ll be lovely.’

  Lovely? Sarah blinked. There were no words.

  A nurse arrived to check the wound and take the patient’s vitals, and Dot Rooney found her world’s best patient smile again.

  Sarah figured it was as good a time as any to escape. ‘I probably should leave you to it, I’ll see you later, Mum.’

  ‘I’ll see you out,’ said Sam. He walked her down the corridor towards the exit.

  ‘I don’t know how you can stand it sometimes, Dad. How do you put up with her?’

  He shrugged. ‘I signed up for the long haul, for better, for worse. Sometimes things are better. But to be fair, she’s in pain and she’s on drugs and she’s worried about the shop. Cut her some slack. She’s not like this all the time.’

  Sarah took a deep breath as the exit doors slid open, delivering them into the afternoon. It had rained earlier and now a watery sun was ramping up the humidity. She stepped to one side, well out of the way of a couple with a pram heading in, averting her eyes as she turned to her father. ‘Yeah, you’re right. Sorry, Dad.’ She reached up to kiss him on the cheek. ‘I’ll bring you both some of my famous lasagne tomorrow, save you from hospital food. How does that sound?’

  Sam’s eyes lit up. ‘I’d be mad to say no to that.’ He was about to head back inside when he said, ‘Oh, an
d congratulations. I can’t wait to hear all about your promotion.’

  2

  Lord Howe Island

  The Lord Howe Island Visitor Centre-cum-museum-cum-café-and-gift-shop was quiet today, but that was hardly surprising. June was one of the island’s quietest months and today’s gusty rain squalls had kept all but the hardiest tourists off their hire bikes and the roads and hunkered down in their accommodation. Jules Callahan didn’t mind. She loved the quiet months, when tourists preferred Bali or Thailand for their winter escape, and residents outnumbered holiday makers for once. It gave everyone on the island a breather, and a chance to go on holidays themselves, or to renew or rejig accommodation and machinery. At the museum, it gave the volunteer staff a chance to spring clean the displays and the gift shop bookshelves (even though it wasn’t yet spring), review what had and hadn’t sold last season, and think about changing things up on the café menu.

  It also gave Jules a chance to think, because there was nothing like having a four-year-old with boundless energy and endless demands to make you appreciate having time to think. Counting and restacking island cookbooks (always a solid seller, since who could resist a book that contained a recipe for the banana cream pie they’d eaten at last night’s buffet?) presented the perfect opportunity. And there was plenty enough for Jules to think about. Della was growing up fast. She’d be at school next year and Jules would be able to increase her hours without having to rely on her mum for childcare so much. Maybe she could even look for a better-paying job—but she’d need to get herself some qualifications for that. There weren’t a whole lot of administration jobs on the island, so competition was fierce. Maybe she should look into doing some kind of diploma?

  Funny—she’d never been ambitious. She’d grown up on the island and thought it the most perfect place in the world to spend her life. Why would you need to strive for more when you had all you wanted?