6 HEATH

6 Heath

What the hell was his dad thinking, inviting strangers back to the house? Had Sean forgotten Heath had moved here to get away from small-town interest? Besides, he needed time to deal with the flashback he’d experienced in the scrub. His brain’s insistence on reliving the past in unguarded moments was exactly why he didn’t sleep during the day. Or much at night.

Instead, there was now a bloody procession of them heading across the yard: him limping along like Quasimodo; Sean blathering on like a leprechaun; and the pilot woman—magpie now perched on her shoulder, peering interestedly at the lamb she carried—while ahead of them the lights of what he assumed to be the doctor’s car illuminated the homestead. Despite his leg, anger kept Heath a couple of metres in front of Sean and Amelia, who were cooing over the lamb like it was a baby. He slowed his pace as he realised he’d have to greet the doctor before Sean got there.

‘Doc,’ his father hailed from behind him, and Heath saw his second mistake: he’d missed his chance to reach the house and slam the door, making it clear he rescinded Dad’s invitation for tea. ‘Nice timing, we’re all headed in for a cuppa.’

‘Hello, Sean,’ the woman said as she climbed from the car.

Heath hadn’t met her before. Dressed in ripped jeans and a light pullover, her dark hair in a ponytail, she didn’t look anything like a doctor. At least not those of his too-recent experience.

‘Amelia!’ she shrieked, destroying any semblance of professional bearing as she rushed toward the other woman and flung her arms around her. ‘I can’t believe you’re finally here. What on earth do you have there?’

If the doctor was surprised by the magpie or the lamb, wait until she discovered the possum Amelia had left in the plane when they rolled it into the hangar, Heath thought sourly. The woman was evidently a pied piper, hoarding animals.

Not waiting to hear more of their reunion, he snatched at the wood-framed screen door and yanked it open.

His respite was short, as Sean immediately ushered the women in after him, directing them through the closed-in back porch to the kitchen. Heath frowned as he noticed a bottle of Beam on the table, although it was tightly capped. Sean liked to test himself by keeping alcohol in the house; he maintained there was no need for the world to change to accommodate his disease. But usually the bottle stayed in a cupboard.

Sean whisked the bottle away, stashing it and busily pulling out mugs, all the while refusing to meet Heath’s gaze. Hackles of alarm lifted along Heath’s spine. Christ, like dealing with Charlee wasn’t enough, now he had to worry about Dad again.

Sean banged the cups down, keeping up a steady stream of inane, cheerful conversation as he filled the kettle under the dribbling kitchen tap.

‘We really can’t stay,’ the doc ventured in the face of his father’s suddenly consuming hospitality. ‘I’ve got to get home and rescue my husband from a fifteen-month-old who’s currently as clingy as all you-know-what.’ She rolled her eyes and a heavy breath—either parental exasperation or exhaustion, both of which Heath remembered well, even almost twenty years down the track—lifted her fringe. ‘Apparently, separation anxiety is a real thing. Who knew?’ She turned to Amelia. ‘But tell me you didn’t swoop down on someone’s paddock and steal this little critter?’

Like her friend, Taylor didn’t seem able to keep her hands off the lamb. Under the harsh glare of the kitchen light, its wrinkled pink skin shone through the sparse wool. Probably premature as well as orphaned, the poor little bugger.

Amelia looked directly at him. ‘Heath rescued him a few minutes ago.’ He wasn’t certain whether her tone was admiring, or if she was teasing him by making him out to be a hero. ‘There are foxes prowling and the mother’s dead.’

‘Ah.’ Taylor winced. ‘That explains the gun. I’d wondered whether it was some kind of less-than-neighbourly greeting.’ She sent Heath a grin, which he returned mechanically. He still remembered how to be polite, how to act normal. Most of the time he simply didn’t bother. ‘So this little one’s a newborn? Doesn’t even want to open his eyes yet.’

‘Is that normal?’

The tremor in Amelia’s voice disconcerted Heath and he looked away from her probing stare. ‘Sheep are Dad’s business, not mine.’

Sean lifted one shoulder. ‘Wouldn’t say so much of a business as a hobby. Got to exercise the old noggin. Can’t just throw in the towel.’ Heath suspected the last part was directed at him. ‘So, truth to tell, I don’t rightly know. Last season’s lambs all had their eyes open, and that one’s the first of the autumn lambs. Little earlier than I was expecting. I’ll have to get in the share farmer to tell me what’s what.’

‘Taylor?’ Amelia said.

Heath busied himself with putting the rifle behind the kitchen dresser, then pulling out one of the packets of biscuits he’d bought for Charlee’s visit.

‘Not my area of expertise,’ Taylor said, fiddling with her necklace. ‘But my friend Roni will know. I mentioned her in some of my emails, Amelia, she’s the one with a farm animal rescue. She’ll be happy to take him on. And she’ll have sheep colostrum on hand—I’d say you need to get that into this little one fairly urgently. Plus her husband, Matt, is the local vet, so if she can’t help, he’ll be able to.’

Amelia nodded, but Heath saw her grip on the animal tighten. He was right: animal hoarder. All the signs were there.

Well, one sign, anyway.

But if the fact that she was flying around with two animals and had already picked up a third inside half an hour was any indication, her house would be cluttered with pets and their refuse, and her conversation limited to concern about their welfare and cuteness. As she’d already proven.

‘I think just keep him warm for now,’ Taylor said. ‘And we’ll swing past Roni’s on the way into Settlers.’

Amelia popped the two top buttons of her black sweater and tucked the lamb, no bigger than a pup, inside the fabric. ‘So it’s your livestock I’m stealing, Sean?’ She shot a reproachful look at Heath, as though he shouldn’t have let her take the lamb. Like she’d given him a choice.

‘Sure, look, it’s grand,’ Sean said as he placed steaming mugs on the table. ‘Besides, I’m fairly certain he’s happy right now.’ He tilted his head toward the lamb.

Heath grimaced. The flash of neon pink bra beneath Amelia’s jumper had been surprising, but he was entirely able to ignore it. His dad, not so much. Put two attractive women in the room and Sean was incapable of reining in either his tendency to flirt or to hit the Irish slang hard.

‘I’ve heard around the traps that the doc ended up here because of love,’ Sean said as he took a seat.

‘Good old town gossip,’ the doctor said with an eye-roll, though she didn’t seem annoyed. No doubt she was accustomed to the way everyone’s private life was rehashed in a small town.

‘But what is it that brings you to our little corner of the world, Amelia? You said contract work. Ag spraying?’ Sean continued.

Amelia crossed her arms over the lamb inside her jumper and gave what almost seemed a sad laugh. ‘Hardly. I’m doing a few hours a week temping for a solicitor in the old council office in Settlers Bridge.’

About what Heath would expect. Just enough work to barely feed her menagerie.

‘Though in the downtime, I’ll probably look into upskilling my recreational pilot’s licence to commercial.’

Lucky he hadn’t opened his mouth to share his thoughts.

Taylor chuckled. ‘Don’t let anyone from the CWA hear you have time on your hands. You’ll be working on your needlepoint before the week’s out.’

‘Not really my scene.’ Amelia grinned with a very obvious false ruefulness and held up one hand, which he was surprised to note bore the faint white tracery of innumerable minor scars. It wasn’t the hand of a woman who spent all day in an office with ten cats on her lap. ‘A friend suggested there could be good business in taking whale watch tours, though, and the coast is a nice hour’s flight from here.’

‘You could take tours over the open range safari park at Monarto, too,’ Sean suggested.

Amelia shook her head. ‘Have you ever been up? It’s hard enough distinguishing topography like hills. Anything smaller than a giraffe is basically invisible, and even they are one-dimensional. Unless you fly at a height that the zoo’s really not going to like.’

‘It’d be restricted airspace, wouldn’t it?’

God knows why his father had to ask, better he just let the conversation die.

Amelia’s ponytail swung as she shook her head. ‘No, unrestricted to forty-five hundred feet. But there’s a “polite understanding” that we don’t fly too low.’

‘You don’t need the work though, do you?’ Taylor asked. Maybe she also was worried how Amelia’s menagerie would get fed.

‘Just keeping busy.’ Amelia’s tone was suddenly curt. She looked down, fussing with the lamb as though it required her attention.

Despite the worn-out old blind, headlights strobed the wall with all the menace of wartime searchlights, and Heath realised he’d been momentarily sucked into the conversation.

‘Charlee,’ Heath said, looking at Sean, knowing his word sounded like a prayer, a plea. A hope that this time things would go right.

‘Aye.’ The laughter had dropped from Sean’s face and that made Heath feel worse. If his father and daughter had been able to act like nothing had changed, like he hadn’t become a monster, perhaps he could have pretended himself.

‘We’ll get out of your way, then,’ Taylor said, standing. Amelia followed suit.

And now he wished they’d stay. Perhaps more people, actual conversation, would break the accusatory chill Charlee’s presence inevitably brought. But, having uttered his daughter’s name, he couldn’t form another word. Could barely bring himself to stand, his left leg suddenly aching with all the agony of the original injury.

No—worse than that. When it happened, it had been hours before he’d even noticed his own injury. A lifetime, in fact.

The front screen door slammed, and the coiling of his gut forced his spine straighter.

‘There you are, then, a pheata .’ Sean’s forced joviality didn’t stop Heath from briefly wondering whether his father’s ‘pet’ was another animal Amelia could adopt.

‘Daideó.’ Despite the Irish honorific, Charlee’s greeting was surly as always. Long gone were the days when she’d run to her grandfather’s arms, eager to tell him her news. ‘Heath.’ She didn’t look at him. He’d been ‘Dad’ until two years ago, when his actions had apparently rendered him undeserving of the title.

From the corner of his eye, he noticed Amelia’s involuntary step back and cringed. Would the doctor find it necessary to stick her nose in, comment on the sour odour that accompanied Charlee into the room? Ask about the scabs and sores that pocked her sallow skin, the dark hollows that ringed her eyes? Wonder at her greasy hair and the sniffling that punctuated every breath his daughter took? Charlee’s dress sense had devolved over the last few months. Where previously she’d been quirky, prioritising op shop finds over labels, what she wore now was always filthy, but at least her faded plaid jacket—overkill for the warmth that the first of the autumn weather still offered—covered the worst of the track marks on her arms. And the baggy overalls that dragged around her knees like a giant nappy disguised the gauntness of her frame.

Taylor didn’t remark on any of it though, just took Amelia by the arm. ‘Hi,’ she said brightly as the two women edged past Charlee, who stared sullenly without moving from the centre of the doorway. ‘We’ll let ourselves out, get Amelia’s gear from the plane, and get this lamb on his way. I’ll see you next week, Sean.’

It wasn’t possible he could be any more tense, but what the hell? Why was Dad seeing the doctor again?

‘And nice to meet you, Heath,’ she added.

Yeah, nice , like meeting your next case study in person, most likely. He nodded, but as he forced a polite smile, he realised that Charlee—still standing in the doorway, glowering at everyone—wasn’t alone.

Instead of introducing the guy who hovered behind her in the dimness of the hall, Charlee eyeballed the departing women. He knew what she was thinking. Long ago, he and Charlee had been joined at the hip. He’d always been able to predict her actions and reactions. They’d laughed at their ability to finish one another’s sentences, sharing the same quirky sense of the ridiculous, delighting in obscure humour. Back then, their similarities had welded them together, cemented their relationship. But apply enough stress, and even cement corroded. Yet he still understood her enough to know that Charlee believed he was being unfaithful to her mother’s memory. The baseless accusation would fuel the latest round of arguing; the passion of their fury a brief spark, almost welcome, as it was literally the only time they communicated now.

‘Hello, there.’ Sean moved past his granddaughter, his hand outstretched. ‘Sean.’

His father drew the guy into the kitchen and Heath sucked in a sharp breath at his deeply lined face. A cop? Youth worker? Some other kind of interfering do-gooder?

As the guy retrieved his hand from Sean’s grasp he ran it over his head, though his hair was shaved back to nothing. ‘Ethan.’

A brightly inked arm drew Heath’s gaze to the crude, monochromatic prison tatts on Ethan’s knuckles. The opposite to a cop, then. Charlee’s dealer? Was she in so deep that he’d brought her home to insist her debt was cleared? Hell, if it was as easy as throwing money at the problem, Heath would pay whatever Ethan was asking, ten times over. But his gut told him it was something more. Ethan was a new kind of trouble.

The brief flash of triumph in Charlee’s gaze as it glanced off Heath’s was proof that she knew it, too. ‘That’s Heath.’ She jerked her chin toward him, not allowing him the opportunity to introduce himself, determined to give him a name rather than his title.

‘What can I do for you?’ he demanded.

The guy looked confused, then gestured toward Charlee and reached for her hand. Her fucking hand.

‘He doesn’t need anything from you , Heath,’ Charlee taunted, leaning against Ethan’s arm. ‘He’s here with me. For me. If Daideó’s going to insist I have to come out to bumfuck bloody nowhere, I least get to bring my own entertainment, right?’

Jesus . Ethan had to be closer to his own age than Charlee’s. Weren’t there laws against that kind of thing? And, although two years ago Heath would have basked in fatherly delight at Charlee’s rare mix of intelligence and looks, right now he had to question what this guy saw in his drug-raddled daughter. Ethan, despite his tatts and the ridiculous fat black plugs in each earlobe, looked clean. A functioning druggie, then, much like a functioning alcoholic? Heath glanced at Sean, as though his father would deny the possibility.

‘Come on in,’ Sean said. ‘We’ve just set up for a cup of tea.’ As he pulled out fresh mugs, Heath caught the tremble of his father’s hands. He wasn’t overreacting—even Sean could see how bad this situation was. ‘Have a seat, you two. Do you want a drink? Your dad picked up pizza for dinner; I’ll get it in the oven.’

‘Who were they ?’ Charlee demanded as the noise from Taylor Hartmann’s car died away in the arctic silence of the kitchen.

‘Friends from town,’ Sean replied. ‘Well, Amelia’s a new friend, I guess. She’s hangaring her plane up on the airfield. Doc Hartmann came out to pick her up.’

‘How is a doctor your friend ?’ Charlee sneered.

‘Thanks,’ Ethan murmured as Sean thrust a mug his way. ‘I’m sure doctors are allowed to have friends, too, Charlee.’ His words were measured, a slight lilt of humour softening what could be a rebuke.

‘Not with my family,’ Charlee snarled. ‘Bloody useless parasites, aren’t they?’

Since that night, there were a swathe of professions Charlee ruled as useless. Anything medical. Police, counsellors. The entire legal system.

‘Taylor’s my GP, so let’s hope she’s not useless,’ Sean said mildly.

‘Why do you need a GP?’ Only someone who knew Charlee would pick the note of fear beneath the aggression in her voice. Her question stirred Heath’s own misgivings. Sean had been to the doctor at least twice in the last few months, each time blowing it off as just a checkup or a minor waterworks problem. And Heath had accepted the answers. Because he had to. He needed to. He couldn’t deal with anything else going wrong. Not here, not now. They’d escaped to Settlers Bridge; tragedy couldn’t follow them like a curse, could it? Yet here was his beautiful, high-achieving daughter: her pupils blown out; dirty nails bitten down to the quick; filthy sneaker tapping an agitated refrain on the lino floor.

‘You know small towns, a ghra ,’ Sean responded imperturbably. ‘Got to keep the locals in business. Anyway, how did you two meet? Uni?’

Charlee rolled her eyes. ‘Told you, I’m not wasting my time there anymore.’ Her innate intelligence had taken her through Year 12 exams and into uni, despite the trauma. Keeping her there had proved to be another issue.

‘It’s not a waste, Charlee,’ Ethan admonished, though his tone was gentle. ‘You just need to shop around, find the degree that suits you.’ He turned to Sean. ‘Yeah, that’s where we met.’

‘You’re … studying?’ Sean asked hesitantly. Evidently the age gap wasn’t only in Heath’s mind.

‘Mature age, obviously,’ Ethan said with a self-deprecating grin. ‘Took me a while to figure what I wanted to do, too.’

‘Which is?’ Heath knew it was going to be one of those bullshit, no-use-in-the-real-world excuses to live on Centrelink for decades.

‘Teaching. Senior students. Figured I might have some good life experience I can pass on, if I can work out the correct way to do it.’

With the uni year less than a couple of months in, Heath could imagine how quickly Ethan’s commitment would fade. ‘And when are you planning to finish that?’

‘End of the year. Would have been done earlier, but you know—’ Ethan hunched a shoulder ‘—late starter.’

‘Never too late to get the old grey matter churning,’ Sean said, and Heath wondered whether Ethan caught the dig at his age. ‘Which reminds me, I’ve put your name down at the tourist centre, Heath. They had an ad on the community noticeboard, looking for members for a new Regional Action Group. Seems Settlers Bridge is experiencing a boom in tourism and they’re keen to make sure it doesn’t get out of hand.’ Sean grinned.

‘What the hell, Dad? I’ve no interest in regional development—’

‘Or anything else, it seems,’ his father said, unusually pointed. ‘But I’m sure they could use your financial expertise.’

‘Ha!’ Charlee chortled. ‘How does it feel to have someone pulling your strings? I told you Heath’s always making decisions on my behalf,’ she added to Ethan.

Heath sighed, the brief anger that had threatened to erupt suddenly ebbing, overwhelmed by the pointlessness of it all. ‘It wasn’t on your behalf, Charlee. And, like I’ve said, I wasn’t the one who made that decision.’

‘And like I’ve said, Mum’s not here to corroborate that, is she?’

For a moment he saw a flash of the old Charlee, who had loved to sink her teeth into a good argument. Back then, though, she’d relied on facts and evidence. Now she relied only on anger to back up her point of view.

Even when she clung to that point of view as a means to destroy herself.