Heartland

One

Kingfisher beer in hand, Callie Reynolds wandered onto the tiled balcony of her shared Airlie Beach apartment. She gazed out over the glorious, island-dotted Whitsunday Coast. The sea flickered gold and silver with sunset, white boats baubling its surface. Further out, dark clouds hung bloated and ominous across the horizon. A rising breeze brushed her loose cotton singlet and ruffled her straggly surfer-girl hair. If Callie was lucky, later that evening she'd be treated to a storm show. Not the blaze, noise and spectacle of Darwin in its build-up to the wet, but a show all the same.

She hooked her bare foot around the leg of a cheap green plastic chair, dragged it forward and sank gratefully down, lifting her feet and placing them on the warm steel balcony rail. She took a swig of beer and half closed her eyes. A whole night off. Damn, she was looking forward to this. No drunks wafting alcoholic breath over her, no clothes and skin stinking of stale booze, no tinnitus from the endless doof-doof of loud music. Just peace washed down with a couple of beers, a curry from her favourite Indian takeaway and a DVD of her most cherished secret indulgence,National Velvet. Bliss.

The screen door scraped open, revealing Callie's housemate Anna in all her shiny, nightclub-primed glory. With perfectly straight silky blonde hair and light golden skin covering a supermodel's bone structure, Anna looked like the Nordic goddess she aspired to be. Except Anna came from Charters Towers, stood less than a metre and a half tall and possessed a voice so harsh and nasal she sounded like a flu-ridden duck. But she had a typical country girl's generosity and sense of fun, and Callie adored her, even if Anna never did pay her share of the rent on time.

'Are you sure you don't want to come out?' Anna asked, reaching down to slip on a ridiculously high platform shoe. 'Mark'll be there.'

'Positive. I've had enough of pubs for the week.'

'We're going to Bohemia afterwards.'

Callie shook her head. She hadn't set foot in a nightclub since her elder sister Hope's death – not even for work – and it wasn't a rule she was about to break. Pubs she could tolerate. Nightclubs roused too many memories.

Second shoe on, Anna tottered toward Callie, her skimpy halter-neck top shimmering. 'You should come out and have some fun.'

Anna said 'fun' like Callie never had any. She did. More often and more easily with each year that passed. Fun simply came in different forms these days.

Callie glanced at the tattoo wrapping around her right wrist like an ornate bracelet. Hope's name circled her skin in hollow uppercase script, the letters outlined in black and filled with blue – the same colour as Hope's eyes. Each capital ended in a flourish decorated with exquisitely tiny leaves, flowers and birds, like the initials of an illuminated medieval manuscript. It'd hurt like crazy, especially where the bone neared the surface of her skin, but unlike the laughing, splashing dolphin on her left bum cheek, Callie never once regretted the tattoo.

'Come on, Cal,' said Anna when Callie remained mute. 'You'll have a great night.'

'Leave her alone,' said their other housemate, Rowan, as he slid open the door and wandered out with one of Callie's beers. Catching her frown he tilted it at her. 'I'll pay you back tomorrow.'

'You could have asked first.'

He shrugged. 'I knew you wouldn't mind.'

She wouldn't, either, but that wasn't the point. Callie stared back out to sea, wondering if she'd made the right decision to stay in Airlie when Darwin was the safer option. The three of them were all so comfortable now. Nearly eighteen months of sharing a living space, pinching each other's food, enduring loud sex and drunken antics had made them close. Perhaps too close, although nothing like her parents' desperate smothering. Besides, Rowan and Anna liked her for who she was.

She turned back to Rowan. 'Aren't you working tonight?'

'Nope.'

'Going out?'

'I wish.' He made a face. 'Study.'

'Ahh,' said Callie, hiding her dismay over her disrupted evening behind a smile of understanding. 'If I steam some extra rice there should be enough curry for two.'

'Thanks but I'll order a pizza.' He grinned. 'That's true brain food.'

'Then you'd best order two,' said Anna, nudging him. 'Seeing as you only have half a brain to start with.'

'Big call from a blonde.'

Anna boggled her eyes at him. 'Blonde and brains aren't mutually exclusive, you know. Anyway, blonde beats bloodnut any day.'

'Hardly. Bloodnuts are bright. In every way.'

Callie intervened before they could really start sledging. 'So what is it this time?'

Rowan screwed up his freckled nose. 'Accounting for Decision Making.'

'Urgh.'

He took another slug of beer. 'Tell me about it. The first assignment's due in a week and I've barely looked at it.'

Which was situation normal for Rowan. Despite the flexibility offered by Open Universities, and as desperate as he was to complete his Bachelor of Tourism and escape the unreliable pay and monotony of bar work, study time proved hard to come by. He, like Callie and Anna, had to take as many shifts as he could get. Thanks to an influx of Baby Boomers, Airlie Beach was no longer a sleepy coastal town. Rents on apartments like theirs had soared, and although cheaper accommodation existed away from the coast, the apartment had a great view, was within walking distance of all their workplaces, and suited their carefree lifestyles.

For all three of them to have a night off, especially a Thursday night when the town was gearing up for the weekend, was a rarity, but they'd make up for their respite over the coming days. Monday morning would find them exhausted, moaning and wondering if it was all worth it.

'I'll try to keep quiet,' said Callie, thinking of National Velvet.

Rowan waved her off. 'Don't bother. I'll wear my headphones.' He turned to Anna. 'But if you could keep the sex racket down for once, that'd be helpful.'

'Who said I'll be bringing anyone home?'

Callie and Rowan looked at her. Anna always brought someone home. Usually a computer repairer named Bruce.

'Jealousy's a curse, you know,' said Anna with mocking sneer.

Callie blinked. 'You think I'd be jealous of Bruce?'

Anna's sneer fell. 'Bruce is a mistake.'

'A mistake you seem to make a lot.'

'At least I have sex,' Anna countered.

'Ahh,' said Callie, grinning and pointing her bottle Anna's way, 'but is it good sex?'

Rowan cast them a confused look. 'Isn't all sex good?'

The two girls rolled their eyes and laughed. Cicadas joined in with their evening whir. Lights began to blink on from the harbour's flotilla of boats, while the chatter of holidaymakers heading out for dinner wafted from the street below.

Anna glanced inside at the wall clock. 'I'd best get going. I'm meant to be meeting Mark and Donna at Magnum's about now.' She gave Callie a last look. 'Text me if you want to come down. Donna missed you last week and I know Mark'd be happy to catch up.' She winked. 'And a bit more.'

'Thanks, but I'm fine right here.'

And as appealing as Mark was, Callie wasn't interested. She reserved sex for cute backpackers who wanted no more from the encounter than she did – an emotionless but fun romp. Although, to be fair, Callie hadn't had that in a while either.

Rowan leaned his arms over the rail and stared out at the blackening sea, while Callie gazed at the sky, nostalgia for home unexpectedly pinging in her chest. Unlike her home town of Melbourne, where twilight lingered, night fell swiftly in the tropics. She missed the south's lazy close of day, where sunsets slow danced into night. At her grandparents' farm, Glenmore, on Victoria's far western coast where the land sprawled flat toward the sea, they seemed to last even longer. If she closed her eyes, she could remember Poppy's shadow on the beach, stretched reed thin over the grey sand, their fishing rods like endless strings as they cast one more line into the sea.

'She's right about Mark, you know,' said Rowan, turning to lean his back against the rail and perch his elbows on the top.

'I know.' She picked at the label on her stubby. 'And he's nice.'

'But?'

'Too nice.'

'And you prefer bad boys.'

'Maybe.'

Good boy, bad boy – it didn't matter. The truth was she didn't want anyone. No ties, no commitment, no fear of letting anyone down. As much as she liked him, Mark deserved more than she could offer.

Rowan gave her a contemplative look, the one that made her sometimes think he might understand what she'd been through. That perhaps they could talk and share. But losing your eldest brother in a car accident didn't compare. Rowan had nothing to do with Des's death, whereas Callie still struggled to shed her guilt over Hope's.

'So are you still planning on leaving?' he asked after a few moments.

Callie took a swig of beer before answering. Rowan and Anna had been left in the air for long enough and deserved a decision. Making one, though, had proved difficult. Callie should leave. Airlie had been the longest she'd lived in one place since she walked out of her parents' home eight years ago. For the first time in her wanderings, Callie felt settled, as though maturity had finally dulled the edges of her pain. It would never fade, she knew that, but perhaps a kind of freedom beckoned. A freedom she could grasp if she had the courage to try.

'I don't know. I need to settle down somewhere.' Callie looked at him, thinking that maybe if she said it out loud the words would make it real. 'Maybe this might be a good place to call home.'

'There are worse places.'

'There are.'

He held her gaze, a smile in his kind, faded hazel eyes. 'I'm glad.'

Rowan wandered back inside and Callie continued her contemplation of the ocean, wrapped in the warm possibility that perhaps, for once, deep within in her heart, so was she.



Callie picked her way onto the marina wall, her tatty salt and sand-encrusted Dunlop Volleys scant protection against the sharp rock angles. To her surprise, she'd slept past dawn. Now she had to hurry to make the turn of the tide and the best fishing. Finally reaching her favourite spot, she laid down her tacklebox and rod and busied herself setting up.

Though still early, the hot sun scalded her skin through the fabric of her long-sleeved shirt and the tatty cotton of her daggy but beloved fishing hat. She squatted down to fix a squishy, crab-shaped lure to her line, making sure to avoid grazing the fine nylon with her sunscreen-slathered legs. One touch and she could kiss goodbye to catching anything, but Callie wasn't stupid enough to venture out without protection. The tropical sun might be beautiful but skin cancer could kill.

Like the sea. Her grandfather had passed away long ago, but she'd never forgotten his lesson: always watch. Rock fishing was one of the most dangerous sports in Australia. No matter how calm things appeared, a freak wave could build in seconds.

She stood and cast out into the open sea with an expert flick, smiling to herself at the whir of the line and the tug of the lure as the current took it. She glanced at the sky, clear but for a few clouds. Last night's storm had passed through and now the day steamed. Unless the breeze picked up the pub where she worked would be stifling tonight, although she was conditioned to the claustrophobia of it and would be too flat out to care anyway. Besides, evening shifts were worth the slog for the freedom of these glorious mornings.

The line tugged. Not hard, just a couple of taps but enough to put her on alert. Callie braced her feet, digging them into crevices, and waited. The hit came. She jerked the rod, grinning when she felt the hook embed. Bream, she guessed from the fight. Not a big one by the feel of things, but size wasn't why she fished. It was the sport, the adrenaline rush and the preservation of memories that after all she'd let go still meant so much.

She reeled the fish in, catching glimpses of it as it fought near the surface, silvery scales reflecting the sun like jewellery. Taking care not to brush it or the line against the wall, she dragged the bream to the edge of the rocks before squatting down to catch it in her landing net.

Her smile broadened. Pan sized. Perfect for lunch.

With the fish scaled and cleaned and stashed in her backpack with a cooler brick, she glanced at the sky again, noting the sun's course. Perhaps another hour, and if she caught enough she might be able to treat Rowan and Anna to a feed as well. Provided Anna was out of bed and not too hungover to eat.

Callie cast out again, thinking about her decision of the night before. She wanted to make this work. She had to, because what had running solved? Nothing. The rift Callie had forced between herself and her parents was too wide for her to ever return home, and no matter where she lived, her guilt still followed. Besides, life was easier here. Full of young transients like her. She fitted.

Rowan was up when she returned late morning, lifting weights at the bench press he'd set up in the lounge, spicing the room with his deodorant and pungent male sweat. His singlet was dark with moisture, his freckled chest heaving with each push. Even with the door open and a breeze clearing the room, the air had that closed-in, dense feeling so unique to the tropics in the wet. Callie itched to turn on the air-conditioning, but after the shock of their last power bill, she, Rowan and Anna had made a pact to use it sparingly. Without air-conditioning, the humidity was impossible to escape.

The barbell made a metallic clank as Rowan set it back in its rack. He took a few deep breaths before sitting up to wipe his sweaty face on a towel. 'Any luck?'

Callie waved her bag at him, talking as she stowed it in the fridge. 'Enough for lunch. For all of us.'

'Cool.'

His attention flicked to the hall, eyes suddenly sparkling. Callie followed his gaze, pressing her lips together as she caught Anna shuffling toward them in a short blue satin dressing gown, her blonde hair knotted and her eyes bloodshot. A lanky, dark-haired man sporting a sheepish smile followed in her wake.

Callie slid a peek at Rowan and quickly looked away before she cracked up. 'Hey, Bruce. How's things?'

'Great.' He placed a hand on Anna's shoulder, unaware of the pained expression it brought to her face.

'Do you want to stop for lunch?' asked Callie, ignoring Anna's sharp look. 'I've enough bream for four.'

Anna's gaze turned withering.

Callie swung away, still trying not to laugh. Poor Anna. She might spout that Bruce was a mistake but that didn't seem to stop her bringing him home. To be fair, Bruce was sweet in a geeky sort of way, and although she refused to recall the incident, Anna had once drunkenly admitted that he was even sweeter in bed, a quality she blamed for her lack of resistance.

'Thanks, but nah. Too much work on. I'll catch ya all later.' He nodded at Rowan and Callie before farewelling Anna with a gentle kiss on the cheek and a cute wink. 'Soon, I hope.'

When the door clicked shut, Anna sank onto the lounge, dropped her head into her hands and groaned. 'Why, why, why do I do this to myself?'

'I don't know, Anna,' said Callie. 'Why do you? Perhaps because you actually like Bruce?'

'He's a dork.'

Rowan stood and began wiping down the weight bench's vinyl padding. 'He's all right.'

'So he's a bit dorky,' said Callie. 'He's also sweet and likes you. A lot.'

'You could do a lot worse than Bruce,' said Rowan, tossing the towel over the bar and heading for the door. 'You need anything? I'm going for a run.'

Callie shook her head. 'Anna?'

'Amnesia pill?'

'There's always the hair of the dog,' said Rowan, laughing when Anna made a retching noise. 'Don't expect any sympathy from this end. It's your own fault.'

He left them to it. As soon as the door clicked shut, Anna issued another despairing groan and flopped to her side, wrapping hanks of tangled blonde hair over her eyes as though to shield herself from the world and all its misery.

Callie crossed to the lounge, sat down next to her and stroked her forehead. 'Poor baby.'

'Don't patronise.'

'I'm not. I've had enough regret-filled mornings after to know what it's like.'

Letting go of her hair, Anna rubbed her red eyes and focused them on Callie. 'Why do I keep going back to him?'

'Because you like him.'

'But he's so . . .' She made a face. 'He's a nerd! He fixes computers! I want a man who wrestles crocodiles and rides bulls and drives a proper car. Bruce drives a Hyundai, for god's sake.'

'So you'd trade someone who loves you for some cowboy who probably shags anything that moves?'

'He doesn't love me.'

'Why not give him a chance and find out for sure?' Callie leaned forward, smiling a challenge. 'What have you got to lose?' She glanced at the wall clock and patted Anna's shoulder. 'Are you up for lunch? Only I have to get a wriggle on. My shift starts at two.'

'I think so.' She sniffed then grabbed Callie's fingers, squeezing hard. 'Thanks.'

A choke threatened Callie's throat as she wondered if this was how things would have been with her and Hope, had her sister lived; intimate talks made cosy with friendship. Callie swallowed the roughness down. 'You're welcome.' She squeezed back, emphasising the heartfelt truth of her words. 'Always.'

Half an hour later, Rowan returned wet with sweat and with every exposed centimetre of his pale freckled skin glowing. He threw a large yellow envelope onto their pine dining table before raiding the fridge for cold water, overspill sluicing down his neck as he gulped straight from the jug.

'Stinking out there,' he said between gulps. 'Going to be filthy in the bar this arvo. Letter there for you, Callie.'

'Thanks.' Callie continued slicing cucumber for their salad, in no hurry to check the post. 'Lunch won't be too far away.'

'Good,' said Anna, leaning over the breakfast bar, almost human again after some paracetamol and a long shower. 'I'm starving. I hardly ate anything last night.'

Callie tossed the last of the cucumber into the salad bowl along with the red onion, rocket and tomato, before grabbing a bottle of French dressing from the fridge and splashing it over. The foil-wrapped fish were baking in the oven, the slices of lemon she'd inserted into their cavities already releasing enticing citrus smells. Her stomach rumbled in response. Breakfast was hours ago and salt air always made her hungry. She tossed the salad, pinching a juicy tomato quarter as she worked and wishing Rowan would hurry up in the shower so they could eat properly.

She placed the salad on the table and, for want of anything else to do, picked up the envelope Rowan left for her. She turned it over and glanced at the Alice Springs post mark. Frowning, she retrieved a knife from her place setting and slit open the pasted- down end. Another envelope slid out followed by a torn-off sheet of notepaper upon which her old flatmate, Andrea, had scribbled a cheerful 'howdy-do' followed by an apology and a 'give me a call some time'. Mail had come for Callie then been misplaced in the usual household chaos, but Andrea was forwarding it now, better late than never.

Dropping the note, Callie picked up the other envelope. A few seconds passed before her brain registered the familiar tight scrawl of the handwritten address.

Dad.

She inhaled deeply, hand fluttering to her mouth.

Over the past eight years, contact with her parents had dwindled to Christmas and birthday phone calls. Short conversations marred by hurt and confusion and too many references to the past. Even when Hope wasn't mentioned she cast a shadow, reminding Callie of what she could never escape.

The last call was eighteen months ago, to her flat in Alice Springs. An out-of-the-blue call from her father 'just to see how she was'. They'd been awkward, careful with their words, and though Callie wanted to reach out she saw that her continued withdrawal had gouged a rift too wide for them to bridge.

Straight afterwards, gripped by restlessness, she'd left the Alice and headed for the coast, wandering until Airlie claimed her. This time, whether by accident or subconscious design she wasn't sure, Callie broke her habit and failed to forward her parents a postcard advising them of her new address and phone number.

'Who's it from?' asked Anna, moving close, her voice full of concern.

'I think it's from my dad.'

Anna said nothing. Callie had carefully fobbed off any talk of her family. All her housemates knew was that she'd had a sister who died. She hadn't even wanted to reveal that except doing so was impossible with Hope's name permanently encircling her wrist.

The shower stopped. Rowan would be out any minute – they'd have lunch then head off to work. Callie had to open the envelope now or she'd never make it through her shift for anxiety about what her father had to say.

Nervous but resigned, she slit it open. A letter sat inside, along with another, folded over envelope. She pulled both out, walking toward the balcony as she did. Anna didn't follow, but Callie could feel her scrutiny as sure as she felt the scented sea breeze against her skin. She opened the letter and scanned the contents. Once, then again, as disbelief at the words jumbled their meaning. Hand over her mouth, she reached for the plastic chair and slumped down.

Nanna. Dead. Over a month ago. Alone in Glenmore's kitchen.

Tears fought with anger. How could she have been so selfish? For the sake of a postcard she'd missed Nanna's funeral, and more. She jammed the letters between her legs and covered her face. Nanna had died alone. And Callie never had the chance to say sorry. That she loved her. That she never meant for any of this to happen.

'Callie?' Anna stepped out onto the balcony, Rowan close on her heels. 'Are you okay?'

She sniffed and tried to hide her turmoil, the returning swirl of fear and guilt, and the overwhelming need to run from her friends before she let them down too.

'My grandmother died last month.'

'Oh, Callie, I'm so sorry.' Anna made to reach for her but Callie turned her shoulder and tore the other envelope open as Anna and Rowan exchanged looks.

She read this letter more slowly, absorbing each word, grief and disbelief rising like a wad of thick dry cotton in her throat. She let the letter flutter to the ground, her brow furrowed as she tried to take it all in, tried to understand. She, of all people, didn't deserve this. Surely Nanna had understood that?

A sob threatened. Callie rolled her lips together, pressing hard against its rise. Seeking calm, she stood and faced the ocean, fingers tight around the rail, attempting to think, but her mind kept skittering, emotions darting between gratitude, fear and guilt.

She snatched up the letter and read it again, bland words explaining an unfathomable legacy. The paper in her hands shook, partly from the breeze, partly from her hold.

'Callie?' It was Rowan.

Conviction settled as Callie traced the outline of her sister's name on her wrist. So Nanna's benevolence was misguided, but that didn't mean Callie couldn't correct the mistake.

She stooped to pick up her scattered papers, hair curtaining her face as she willed her stoic mask into position. It was an expression Callie had spent years perfecting, a calm normalcy behind which she hid her turmoil, showing the world that she was strong. With deliberate endeavour, she folded the letters and slid them into their envelopes before facing Rowan and Anna.

'I'm sorry, but I have to go.'

Anna's eyes widened. 'What do you mean, go?'

'I mean I have to leave. Here. I have to drive south.' Callie took a shuddery breath, forcing herself to say the words. 'I have to go home.'

Anna threw a fretful glance at Rowan. 'But why?'

Callie looked at them both, heart aching with loss – for Nanna; for her housemates; for what she was about to do.

'My grandmother, in her will, she left me Glenmore.' She swallowed hard, fingers creasing the envelopes. 'Now I have to give it back.'