Love or Money (13 page)

‘Erin.' Hamish reappeared, holding the hysterical little boy tight against his chest. ‘Please go. Now. While the going's good.'

‘Thanks.' She stood quickly. ‘I wish I could help. One day, I'll —'

‘Any minute, things may get out of hand,' he said. ‘Just go.'

She headed for the door. As she opened it, she heard Dwayne scream again.

Next morning Erin decided to risk an early visit to Sarah's café. A soothing coffee would help her to cope with the pain of those fraught minutes with Hamish the night before. As she headed for the coffee shop in the cool of the morning, she sensed something amiss in the little town. People were silent, heads down as they walked. There were no little clusters passing the time of day near the post office steps or outside the general store. Sarah's was deserted — unusual for this time of the morning. She stepped inside and ordered her usual flat white.

‘Heard the news?' Sarah said as she tended the hissing coffee machine.

‘No.'

‘Honey Biggs. Poor, poor kid.' The fiftyish café proprietor, sad-faced, wiped away a tear. ‘Killed last night. Driving home from the pub, they said. Latish. Hit a milk tanker. Bailey's Corner. Apparently she took the corner way over on the wrong side. Her car was just a flattened mess, they said. Bits all over the road. They told me the highway was blocked for three hours.'

‘I'm — so sorry.' Erin reeled. The night before, she'd spent time in a house where Honey's presence was almost tangible. Whatever her weaknesses, she'd played her part in that elemental mother-father-child triangle — talking, eating, crying, sleeping, giving birth.

Now she was dead. Hamish was alone. He'd be broken, shocked. All his years with Honey — the good times, the pain, the defeat — would bear down on him. Erin felt her heart melt for him. A tear fell onto her cheek.

‘How's Hamish?' she asked.

‘No one's seen him. He'll be devastated. Always had a soft heart, our Hamish.' Erin pictured him, holding his son on his lap, sitting in the gloom of his lounge with its drawn curtains.

‘Everyone knew they didn't get along,' Sarah said as she set Erin's coffee on the table. ‘But lately, Honey's behaviour — it's been way over the top. Getting worse by the minute. The drinking, neglecting Dwayne. The other men.' She shook her head, sniffed away a tear. ‘But now…we can't help but be sad for her.'

Other customers trickled in, all wearing the grey cloak of sudden sadness. Small towns were like that, Erin realised. The residents were one big messy family, strung together over generations. People felt one another's pain, through drought and flood, sickness, loss and death. The community became woven together as generation on generation of local families intermarried, had their children, and died. Erin's grandmother had been a loved member of that community.

She finished her coffee and walked towards her cottage. The pain in her heart reached out to Hamish; he'd be grieving, alone. As if he hadn't enough to handle without this. Her heart begged her to go to him. She should talk with him, try to ease at least a little of his burden, just be close to him. But now was the wrong time. The wrong time for a citified, new-in-town girl to tell him she understood, wanted to care for him in his pain. As she walked, the push-pull tension drove her to despair. He'd want to be alone with his grief, and she wanted, desperately, to be with him.

The conflict gnawed at Erin all the way back to her cottage. What would her grandmother have done? Easy. She'd have whipped up a nice cake, taken it over to his place, and poured him a generous cupful of consolation, straight from her heart.

Erin opened her Katies document and tried to write. Nothing came. She wandered round the cottage, putting away stray bits of laundry, wiping the kitchen bench for the twentieth time that day. A few minutes after lunch, she found herself walking up the path to her front gate, car keys in one hand, a bunch of daisies in the other.

Hamish's house stood quiet, blinds drawn. There were no cars parked outside. She took the daisies, walked up to the front door and knocked. Seconds later, he opened it, face pale, body stooped.

‘Come in,' he whispered. She followed him down a hall. At the door to the lounge, he turned, eyes red. ‘Why did you come?'

‘Because I want to be here for you, Hamish.' He sat on a sofa in the darkened room, pointed to an armchair. She put the flowers on a sideboard and took a seat. ‘I know you've been feeling bad about…the way things just seem to happen between us,' she said. ‘Like — our time at the beach.' She paused, looked down. ‘I just came to tell you I want to help. If you'll let me.' His eyes locked onto hers. For a moment, she thought he'd say something, then he leaned back into the sofa.

‘You know, I believe you,' he said eventually. ‘It took guts for you to come. I need to apologise for last night — Dwayne's losing it, my not being there for you.'

‘It was nothing.' she said. ‘Your little boy needed his daddy. Now you have…so much more to bear. I thought if I could tell you I really want to be your friend, it might help a little.'

‘It does.' A tired smile flicked across his lips. ‘Maybe I over-reacted about that night at the beach. And as for last night…' His eyes burned into hers again. ‘Tell me we're friends, Erin.' The desperation in his voice spoke more powerfully than his tortured words.

‘We are, we are.' Tears spilled down her cheeks. The silence that settled felt kindly — a bandage wrapped over a bleeding wound. Erin stood, picked up the daisies and walked to the kitchen. She filled a glass with water and arranged the flowers in it. As she returned to the lounge, she stopped in the doorway. ‘My Grandma would have asked if you'd like something. A coffee? Some lunch?'

‘She would have too,' he said. ‘God bless Edna.' The ghost of a smile flickered across his face. ‘Make us both a coffee, then. I need it. Maybe you do too.' A few minutes later she returned with coffees and a plate of biscuits she'd found in a packet.

‘The truth works better at times like this, Erin,' he said as she set down the tray. ‘You knew how it was with Honey and me.'

‘Well — what people have told me. What I've seen. But I can't imagine the pain you must have had. And Honey — she'd have been hurting too. For years.'

‘One day, I'll come to see this time as a blessing.'

Erin looked hard into his eyes, not believing what she heard. ‘Don't be surprised, Erin. Living with Honey was — hell. Getting worse by the minute. Dwayne's been hurt, again and again. My parents try to help, but they have their limitations.' He looked away. ‘I'd been wondering how much more I could stand. I toughed it out for Dwayne's sake. Now it's over.' Erin slipped away to the kitchen, one ear trained towards the lounge.

‘Come back, Erin,' he called. She took her seat again. He cleared his throat. ‘I did love her,' he said. She listened, quiet in her chair. He wanted to purge his grief, and in some way she couldn't understand, her being there was helping him. ‘It seems a long time ago now', he said, clear-eyed. ‘For years, I thought we could get it all back together. Stupid. It was never going to happen. Wise people told me that. I could never bring myself to believe them.' Again, his eyes fixed on hers. ‘Be with me, Erin,' he whispered.

She moved to the sofa, sat close to him, took his hand. Their touching lifted her into a place she'd never been before — a place where their two hearts seemed to fuse. She felt herself becoming a part of a new being — an ‘us'. In all her time with Todd, she'd never been to such a place. It was as if a benevolent witch had cast a spell over them. They sat close and still for a long time. Occasionally, she looked up at him and he smiled down.

‘I should go now,' she whispered.

‘Come to the funeral, Erin,' he said. ‘Be there when — I need you.' She stepped away, at the same moment surprised and sceptical. Why would he need her when he had family and community? When the whole town felt for him? What help could she give that he couldn't get in spades from the other people in his life. And yet he'd said those words. Why?

‘I will.' She leaned away from him. It would be okay to kiss him. In a chaste, sisterly way, of course. She moved her lips onto his, felt his response. They held that soft, caring kiss for a long time. Something inside her body stirred, began telling her she wanted more, must have more. Fighting her body's wilfulness, she eased away, stood, smiled.

‘See you at the church,' he said. ‘Saturday at two. Please come.' She let herself out and walked to her car, still confused. Why had he asked her, so earnestly, to come? At the funeral he'd be inundated by family, by friends he'd known all his life. Was it because something new, real, had happened between them? What would come next?

Hamish's eulogy, delivered with his natural dignity, triggered floods of tears across the congregation. The wheezy pedal organ puffed its way through the last verse of the funeral hymn. The final notes died away. The congregation stood, then flowed quietly, tearfully to the door. Hamish and three of his surfer mates — clean-shaven, dark-suited, sombre — carried the coffin from the little church. A cloud of sadness hung over the ceremony until the brief graveside prayers were over and the mourners silently walked to their cars. Erin took herself back to her cottage, hungry for space and solitude.

The next morning, Hamish left Dwayne with his paternal grandparents, then headed down the coast, his truck loaded with camping gear. A few days of solitude in his beloved wilderness would begin to heal the hurt that would leave a scar for the rest of his life.

A new path towards his future had opened. Hamish's mother and father loved the little boy, and would love to help care for him. Since his birth, they'd come off second-best in the babysitting stakes. Honey always chose her parents to mind Dwayne, though they lived in a tumbledown hovel with a pack of ever-hungry whining mongrels, and a snake-infested pile of rusting car bodies in the front yard.

Hamish pitched his tent half way up a forested mountain, and spent his days in leafy quietness. Each evening he looked out over the ocean as the sun set, feeling his wounds healing in the magic space of the forest. Back in the office a week later, he segued back into his workday life with new commitment. A few minutes before nine one morning, he picked up his ringing phone.

‘Dave Collins here, Hamish. We heard the sad news about your partner.' The voice of Pembroke Shire's mayor carried real sympathy. ‘All of us at the Council send our sincerest condolences.'

‘Thank you, Dave.' Hamish felt his old confidence surge. ‘I'm back at work now. Planning to get on with the rest of my life. How can I help you?'

‘Can you come over for a quick meeting, Hamish? Around two?'

‘Sure, Dave. But what's the —'

‘Another application to log the Pembroke Ranges eucalyptus forest. For woodchips, would you believe? Only this time it carries a bit of muscle. Financial muscle. Huge compensation packages for the farmers whose land might be involved. Those farmers could turn to water when they see that cash dangled in front of them. So that's where you come in, Mr Green Hero.'

‘Thanks for the new title, Dave. See you at two.'

As Hamish drove, he chewed over his history with the Shire. He'd scored a profile as a passionate Green lobbyist just weeks after he'd returned to Luna Bay to take over the ailing legal practice. Word had spread through the district about his student days — in particular, his TV appearances as a Green hero prepared to die for his values. There'd been a community standoff against a plan to push a freeway through remnant forest in Sydney's southern suburbs. Clips on evening TV news bulletins followed. Hamish had chained himself to a huge fallen eucalyptus log and waited for the bulldozers. Those bulldozers, and the TV cameras, weren't long in coming.

‘Let them bulldoze me,' he'd said into the camera crew's mike that first afternoon. ‘If I have to die to save just one tree, I will.' Then the newspapers picked up the story. He began to score headlines that earned him a lasting place in Green legends.

‘Student Greenie in life-or-death stand.'

‘“Better me than a single tree” says Greenie Hamish Bourke.'

Common sense had won that battle in the end. The freeway was diverted and the forest survived. Pembroke Shire, for years an icon on the Greenie map, quickly recruited their local boy for environmental lobbying gigs when he came home and set up practice. He came to know the councillors well, enjoyed being wined and dined by them often. He'd be interested to read the small print of the latest confrontation.

‘Asaka Chemical. Big Japanese conglomerate.' Dave Collins, Pembroke Shire's mayor, leaned across his desk and passed a folder to Hamish. ‘They've done their homework, and fast. Listen to this.' He flicked through a gaudy mailout.

“Generous compensation for local land holders.”

“250 well-paid, secure jobs to be created for Shire residents.”

“Much-needed injection of dollars into Shire coffers for roads, parks, bridges.”

‘Do you believe all that stuff?' Hamish asked.

‘No.' Dave flicked the glossy paper to Hamish. ‘We reckon their promises aren't worth the paper they're written on. But farmers discussing it over their evening beers will fall for it. Already, pub talk is supportive, so we're told.' Dave's face took on a glum look of defeat.

‘By the way, we had a visit the other day from a real city slicker type. Asaka's man in Sydney. He simply wouldn't take no for an answer. Hinted at some big local extravaganza “to present both sides of the story to the local community.” He asked Council's permission to stage it. We couldn't legally refuse him. His name's Todd Archer. Ever heard of him?'