2 HEATH

2 Heath

Heath’s father insisted that the woman who ran the local IGA—Lana, Lisa, whatever—was unfailingly friendly. More like unfailingly nosey, Heath thought, batting aside the sticky PVC strips that hung across the doorway, waiting to strangle him. It was typical of Sean Brennan to look for the best in everyone. Everything. As though life wasn’t intent on shitting all over him.

‘You like the new rainbow flystrips?’ the magenta-haired owner called after Heath as he fought to untangle himself. ‘Sharna brought them up from Adelaide. Make a nice change, don’t they?’

Like he knew or cared who Sharna was, or what colour the useless pieces of plastic were. Pretending not to hear, he strode along the deserted cement footpath, his arms wrapped around his haul of chips and sweet biscuits. On the rare occasions that necessity forced him out of the house, he preferred to do his shopping in the anonymity of Mount Barker. Settlers Bridge was too small; the locals insatiable in their incestuous need to know the intimate details of everyone’s life. They assumed that Heath moving into the district gave them some sort of right to his story and his privacy. So that meant it was easier to stay the hell away from them all.

But today he’d screwed up, somehow lost track of the endless, miserable days, and not realised that Charlee was due home. He could have spared the extra hour, got Sean to run him to Mount Barker to get a supply of the junk food that might tempt his only child to eat. But Settlers Bridge was closer, and the less he changed his routine, the better he could deal. Today—like every other day—had been set aside for sitting in front of his computer. There’d be hours of listlessly paging through the finance updates, making a few disinterested trades as though he actually gave a damn whether he made money, lost money. And then hours dedicated to watching downloaded videos, hunching over the screen like he was a teenager secretly watching porn. Not a forty-five-year-old man trying to cling to his own wife.

‘You right then?’ he called as Sean appeared from one of the narrow alleyways that joined Main Street to the road behind. He didn’t want a rundown, didn’t want to hear what the local doctor, Taylor Hartmann, had said about his dad’s health. Quite literally, all he wanted to know was that his father was all right. Because he couldn’t deal with anything else.

Sean waded through the shade that lurked beneath the bullnose verandahs fronting the few shops. ‘Right as rain,’ he said chirpily, not allaying Heath’s concerns at all. ‘Sunday clinic at the local GP.’ He shook his head in wonder, the thick, black hair that knocked twenty years off his seventy flopping across the Irish blue eyes. ‘Tell me where you can find that in the city.’

‘At any of the bulk-billing clinics, I’d assume,’ Heath said dryly. ‘The doc’s only in today to make up time, isn’t she? You had to wait long enough to get an appointment.’

Sean fell into step with the slightly rolling gait Heath had learned at rehab to favour his left leg. The handful of other shops in Settlers Bridge were all shut on a Sunday morning and the footpath was almost deserted.

‘Aye.’ His father often adopted an Irish brogue, despite being in Australia for most of his natural-born. ‘Sure, bulk-billing clinics. But it’s not like you get to see your own doctor at one of those, is it?’

‘Wouldn’t know. There wasn’t one back home.’

‘Points for Settlers Bridge then.’ Even after all these months, his father was still trying to extol the advantages of their new location, but Heath had moved to the district with his eyes wide open. It hadn’t been for love of the area, or convenience, or work. He’d needed to escape regional Victoria, and Sean had had a hankering to leave the city and see out his retirement on a hobby farm. His dad had found the property, pretty well halfway between where each of them lived, and Heath had signed the papers without even bothering to look at it. Then he’d called the removalists to pack up what was left of his and Charlee’s lives.

The lives that, more than a year later, were still in boxes in one of the spare bedrooms of the old farmhouse he’d bought.

‘Though perhaps country life isn’t so good if you’re a medico,’ Sean continued. ‘The doc’s run off her feet, the poor lass. Said they couldn’t get a locum in to backfill her while she was on maternity leave, so now she’s putting in an extra day each fortnight to play catch up.’

‘Sounds like a recipe for burnout.’

‘Seems you’d know something about that.’

Heath shrugged. ‘I’m so laid back I don’t even log in till near lunch time.’ Not that he was awake much before that: the dark of night gave his brain far too much cavernous room for thinking, for reassessing his choices, for trying to find a solution to the insoluble. Sleepless nights had to be caught up somewhere.

‘Emotional burnout is a thing,’ Sean said quietly.

Heath pretended not to hear him. He’d become good at that. Or perhaps he’d always been good at it. Maybe things would be different if he’d listened more, been more connected.

‘In any case,’ Sean said, obviously working to keep the conversation upbeat, ‘the doc said her practice is looking to put on a new GP.’

‘Isn’t that because Doctor Clarke retired?’ Seemed that no matter how he tried to stay out of it, local news managed to filter into his brain.

‘Doc Clarke’s not practising anymore, but they’re looking to replace him and add another to give Doc Hartmann a break. Guess the town must be growing.’

‘Not so you’d notice.’

With the shops closed, the main street had a desolate air, somnolent despite the chill that suggested autumn was moving in. Come pension day, though, the town would be fairly hopping with older folk in from the farms to get their groceries. The seniors made a day of it, the broad main street lined with utes that had been birthed in the previous century and the four-wheel drives of retired farmers who were doing all right out of their superannuation plans. They’d shop, then lunch at one of the two pubs, with the Settlers known for its deep-fried heart-attack menu, and the Overland, directly opposite, boasting an actual chef and catering to the more discerning. In the afternoon, the oldies descended on the bank, which, despite taking up the entirety of one of the two statuesque, double-storey sandstone buildings at the top of the street, was only open one morning and one afternoon each week.

‘There’s the new hardware shop,’ Sean pointed out.

‘To replace the old hardware, directly across the road. That’s not growth.’ Replacing something wasn’t moving forward or moving on; after two years, Heath understood that. ‘Hey, watch it,’ he snarled as a group of teens rolled past on skateboards. His reprimand was unnecessary; the walkway was wide enough to ease a car along.

One of the kids deftly angled his board so it slid along the high edge of the gutter, the timber squealing at the contact.

‘Sorry, dude,’ another boy said, leaping off his board and tapping the tail with his toe so it jumped into his hand. ‘Nowhere else to cruise, though.’ He gave a semi-mocking two-fingered salute before dropping the board, stepping onto it and gliding down the hill toward the bridge.

‘That thing seems like an extension of him,’ Sean marvelled. ‘Remember back when you were into skateboarding?’

‘No.’ Heath tried to blank out everything that had happened before. Everything, that was, except the parts he wanted to cling to, forever playing them on repeat as though it would make up for not paying enough attention back then. ‘What’s with all the kids hanging around?’

‘All five of them, you mean? Easter holidays, remember.’

Of course. That’s why Charlee was coming home. Except he hadn’t put two and two together, hadn’t realised that was why Charlee was coming home. Hadn’t, in fact, thought beyond the pain her appearance would cause, the scars that would reopen, the blame game that unfolded like a Monopoly board every time he saw her.

Even though there was no blame to apportion. He knew that. Knew he’d made the right choice, the only possible choice. Yet, if that was true, why did guilt keep him awake at night? Why was the pain almost as raw as it had been two years ago?

Heath scowled, knowing the answer to the conundrum that played on repeat in his head: the pain would never ease because it had truly been Sophie’s choice.

A flock of sparrows swooped to squabble at a food scrap one of the teens had dropped, cartwheeling and twittering across the road in a flurry of ruffled feathers and flapping wings. Sean chuckled. It was typical that he’d still find joy in such moments. But then his disposition had always been different to Heath’s. Sean said that was because Heath took after his mother, but he’d never known her. Instead, he’d grown up with his stepmum, Jill. But she was dead now, too.

‘Anyway,’ Sean said, ‘Doc Hartmann said they’re not having much luck, because most med school graduates aren’t keen to head out into the country to set up as a GP. They’re chasing the dollar and shorter hours, so going into a specialised field is more appealing than the slog of general practice.’

‘Were you paying this doctor?’

‘Of course. Why?’

‘Sounds like she was hitting you up for free life coaching.’

He was joking, but Sean nodded consideringly. ‘You know, there might be a space for something like that here.’

‘Thought you were supposed to be retired?’

Sean tapped his forehead. ‘Use it or lose it.’ He stopped to read the flyers on the door of a shop.

Heath had rarely seen the postal outlet-cum-dry-cleaning agent open, but obviously locals got in there often enough to sticky tape their adverts and news items on the door. A litter of kittens were looking for new homes, there was a second-hand tumble dryer for sale and a piano to give away. The Country Women’s Association had an AGM advertised, but the date was before Christmas just gone. A business card for a local Tupperware distributor hung crookedly between a notice about community submissions on repurposing a block of land, and an ad for line dancing in the old bank at the top of Main Street. That was the other bank, which didn’t open two half-days a week, he presumed.

‘It’s rural here, but not exactly remote, so I don’t really see why graduates would have an issue. Don’t they have to do a two-year internship or something like that, anyway?’

‘No idea. Sounds like you’ve watched too much TV.’

Not recently. He didn’t have one in his side of their place. Though he and Sophie had loved House , back in the day. ‘Guess not everyone’s up for the fresh country air,’ he said sarcastically as a milk tanker laboured up from the dilapidated bridge spanning the Murray River, trailing the stench of cow crap fresh from the road outside the dairy where the cattle crossed twice daily.

When Heath had first moved here, he’d made the mistake of forcing himself back behind the wheel; living in the country, it was impractical not to drive. But last winter the cow shit covering that section of road had been as slippery as ice, and his LandCruiser had slewed dangerously close to the metre-deep irrigation channels that bordered the road. Afterwards, he wondered if he should have embraced the moment; divine intervention wasn’t the same as suicide. But at the time, instinct had kicked in and he’d eased off both the brake and accelerator, allowing the car to aquaplane until it found the security of gravel beyond the slick. He hadn’t driven since.

‘Early lunch?’ Heath tipped his head toward the pubs at the lower end of the street. The last time he’d been in town—ironically, the previous school holidays, just after Christmas—there’d been a local farmer in the IGA who’d tried to initiate a conversation. Heath had cut him short with a nod and grunted ‘mate’. If they had lunch early enough, maybe they could avoid more of the same overtures—though no doubt the cashier was having a good old gossip about him to whoever wandered in next. ‘Pub okay with you?’ he added belatedly. As usual, his focus was far too much on himself.

‘Can do,’ Sean said affably. ‘Want me to bring the car down so you don’t have to walk back up the hill?’

‘Nope.’ The pain was all he had left. Well, that and Charlee.

‘Chips at the Settlers or steak at the Overland?’

‘Chips are quicker.’

‘Right you are. While I remember, the doc’s got a friend flying in next week. Needed a spot to park the plane and Roni Krueger down the road suggested one of our hangars. I said that’d be fine. No point paying for space at Pallamana Airfield when we’ve got a pair going begging.’

‘Wouldn’t have said they’re going begging.’ He didn’t need anyone dropping by, even if it was only to use the bush airfield over a kilometre from the homestead. ‘Don’t know that the airstrip’s any good. Probably needs grading or rolling.’

‘I’ll take a look this week.’

‘You do that.’ Heath wouldn’t be wandering the property to find out; he was barely aware of the boundaries, only that they were distant enough to afford him some privacy. Or at least they would be, if Sean hadn’t stuck his oar in. ‘So long as the doctor picks him up. We don’t want it getting around that we’re running some kind of ferry service from the airstrip into town.’

Sean put one hand on the frosted glass door into the pub. ‘This isn’t too shabby, is it? Not many places you’d get two magnificent old pubs like this, dead opposite one another.’

‘If you say so.’ His father was always trying to put a positive spin on their decision to move into the area. The only thing Heath was positive about was that he didn’t damn well care. Where he lived was irrelevant. No, that wasn’t right: it was life itself that was irrelevant. He continued to live because he had a duty to. No other reason.

It was a shame Sophie hadn’t felt the same way. Or rather, that the evidence proved he hadn’t felt the same way about her.