Page 17 of Wings Above the Mallee

Sean was enjoying the meeting far too much. Heath realised with vague surprise that, although his father had only retired four years ago, he’d never seen him in work mode. Now Sean was in full flight, having taken over the chairing of the meeting when it devolved into a chatty free-for-all with no attempt made at structure. Or minute-taking. Heath glanced sideways to where Amelia had taken the seat next to Charlee and sat tapping on an iPad. She’d suffered from Sean knowing her name, as he’d quickly singled her out for the task.

‘We need a focus for the group,’ Sean had announced after an hour of pointless waffle and to-and-froing. They’d done the usual torturous icebreaker, and Heath had vaguelyamused himself by giving nothing more than his name. The group was female-heavy and, with a range of ages from six to about eighty-six, the most motley collection of knights of the round table ever, he thought, with a sudden appreciation of the ridiculous. Alongside Sean was Tracey, an older woman with wild silver hair threaded through with colourful scarves that matched the rainbow of bangles on her arm. Next to her, Gabrielle—if he remembered her intriguingly accented greeting correctly—was quietly and expensively elegant, yet the guy she introduced as her husband—and everyone else referred to as Wheaty—was in jeans, the tanned arms stretching the sleeves of his t-shirt testament to a blue-collar job. There were others. Lucie and Jack, who had a lively primary schooler and kept protectively and secretively touching Lucie’s perhaps slightly rounded belly. Sam from the local cafe, along with Christine, who worked there but acted like the owner on the rare occasion he’d been in. Roni, owner of the local farm animal refuge, who’d left her husband at home looking after twins, had pushed her chair close enough to Sam to swap giggled whispers. And the butcher, the baker, the candlestick maker; Heath let his vision glaze. He had no need to remember these people, their names, their businesses. They were nothing to him. The only ones he had any interest in, other than Sean, sat at the far end of the huge oak conference table. Charlee leaned against Ethan, who had his elbow on the polished desk, chin in hand, the proceedings probably beyond his intellectual grasp. Charlee idly traced the infinity symbol tattooed on her wrist. Was that a new one? Heath had lost count of her ink, each image a rendition of the same theme. A sideways figure eight, the continuous curves signifying limitlessness. No end.

Wishful thinking.

In contrast to his daughter’s studied grubbiness was the local doctor, Taylor, in what Heath guessed was her consulting uniform of dark slacks and white shirt. Charlee could have been a doctor. Could have been anything she wanted. But apparently all she wanted was to not be here. And he didn’t know whether that meant Settlers Bridge or something … bigger.

‘Oh, I’ve got a focus all right,’ Lynn said with a throaty chuckle.

Heath rolled his eyes as Sean grew about ten centimetres. Any hope of Dad guiding the meeting to an early wrap-up had hit the deck. Hard.

‘We need to clarify a purpose for the group,’ Sean continued with considerable composure, considering the wave of giggles that followed Lynn’s announcement. ‘As I understand it, Settlers Bridge has experienced some growth—’

‘Somuch growth,’ Tracey burst in, winding the end of one of her scarves around her thin hands. ‘First there was Roni. No, actually, I suppose you were first, Taylor.’ She broke off, patting Roni’s hand as though the young woman needed consoling for being moved to second place. ‘Then Gabrielle came into town. Though of course, that meant we lost Sharna—’

‘Not my fault!’ Gabrielle protested.

‘Well …’ Tracey drew out the word, making it an accusation, although her eyes glinted with humour. ‘You make our Wheaty happy, so we’ll excuse you, anyway. And of course, Gabrielle’s inn brings people from all over the place.’

‘Monarto Safari Park and The Bend Motorsport Park are more likely the cause,’ observed Dave Jaensch, his heavy jowls wobbling reprovingly. ‘And you’ve got the council to thank for advocating for those.’

Even if Dave hadn’t introduced himself as the local council representative, Heath would have guessed it. The only people ever happy with that organisation were employed there. He pondered briefly on the chicken-or-the-egg aspect of that.

‘Not that we need more people coming through town,’ Christine put in, her dark eyes flashing and lips snapping off the end of the sentence.

‘Youdo,’ Dave retorted. ‘Ploughs and Pies will get more out of the tourists than the rest of us put together. Comes back to council.’ He nodded assertively.

‘It’s not like council advertises for Settlers Bridge businesses or hands out grants,’ Gabrielle said.

‘Speaking of newcomers,’ Dave said, scowling, ‘you can’t expect to have everything on a platter. I sit in council every month and support anything to do with tourism, even though it’s not doing my property any favours, just stirring up the dirt on the road going past my house. Going to have to get the council to look into laying some bitumen.’

‘Convenient,’ Jim Smithton—who apparently made a living from some kind of chauffeuring business, as bizarre as that sounded out here—said. ‘Am I the only one who’s noticed that our bitumen roads seem to end right outside councillors’ houses? Meanwhile, the switchbacks down to Gabby’s place on the river don’t even rate a warning sign. Lucky I know them well enough, but you wouldn’t want any other service trying to navigate them on a dark night.’

Amid a general kerfuffle of aggrieved agreement, Dave half-rose from his chair, hitching up his pants as though considering taking his indignation elsewhere. Faelie appeared from the hallway, carrying a large platter, and Dave settled back down. ‘That your angel food cake, Christine?’ he said, all arguments forgotten as the tray reached the table. ‘Know the way to a man’s heart, you do.’

Sean shot Heath a look and he knew his father was trying not to laugh.

‘Then there was Lucie, came here from Melbourne,’ Tracey continued as though she hadn’t been interrupted. ‘Or really, from the Adelaide Hills, wasn’t it, Lucie? And now, though you’ve been around a year or so, you two are finally in town.’ She smiled at Sean and Heath as though she’d been waiting to welcome them into the fold.

‘And we have …?’ Christine said coldly, letting the sentence trail off, her eyebrows raised toward the end of the table.

Charlee eyeballed Christine back silently, but Ethan’s hand snaked out, covering hers, and Charlee dropped her challenging gaze. ‘Charlee and Ethan,’ he said. ‘But we’re just tagalongs, with Sean and Heath.’

‘More the merrier, lovey,’ Lynn said, when it seemed Christine was likely to pass judgement on their right to be there. ‘If this is a think tank—and I reckon that’s what you’re trying to figure out, Sean?—to come up with ideas to capitalise on the growth in Settlers Bridge, we need some fresh blood, not just old chooks and roosters. We could do with input from the young ones.’

That rulesout suggestions from Ethan, Heath thought snidely.

‘Actually, I do have a point I’d like to raise,’ Ethan said.

9

Sean

Sean could feel the surprise—or was it anger?—emanating from Heath at Ethan’s interjection. But really, that wasn’t unusual: Heath was as bad as Charlee. They both hid their grief—and at a guess, he’d say guilt—behind animosity. Charlee’s was more overt, while Heath was sullen and withdrawn. The problem was, while Charlee had some right to her emotions, Heath had moved into wallowing territory. Because of Sophie’s sacrifice, he was idolising her instead of admitting that their marriage had been less than ideal for years. Not bad, not rocky, but a bed of pebbles had certainly accrued.

‘Excellent,’ Sean said, ignoring Heath’s glower. ‘Lynn’s right, if we want to cater to a broad demographic, there’s no point us oldies having all the say. I mean, for me, a good cafe selling some local baking—’ he took a homemade Monte Carlo biscuit from the tray in front of them, admiring the raspberry and cream–striped filling ‘—is pretty much all I need. But other than Ploughs and Pies, there’s probablynot a whole lot in Settlers to catch the attention of anyone below sixty.’

‘Why would we want to attract anyone younger? They aren’t cashed up, and we’d just be asking for trouble,’ Dave countered.

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