‘Mum! Please!’ I can’t even look at Hugh.
‘Nonsense! If you’re at the beach and you happen to hit it off with some aimless young Byron Bay vagabond . . . It doesn’t have to be a Hemsworth brother.’
‘MUM!’
Even the cabbie’s shoulders are shaking now in the front seat. How is this my life?
‘Grace is going to move into your place on the weekend with Charlie. She’s got some ludicrous scheme to overhaul your front garden, not that the poor girl would recognise a weed if she tripped over one in all that Gucci.’
I get a mental picture of Grace flailing around in my rock garden in this season’s chambray denim Valentino coveralls and patent Prada boots, Fendi bag swinging from her shoulder, developing an urgent data science quandary requiring the assistance of a mathematical genius.
‘I told her there’s no point tidying the yard. You’ll only let it go to rack and ruin again because you’re addicted to that machine. What do you do on there all the time, Kate? I’m sure it’s not work. Is it an internet beau? Just make sure he’s not one of those puffer fish. I saw a story about that on A Current Affair and they prey on desperate, lonely women.’
‘Mary,’ Hugh interrupts, taking the phone out of my hand altogether. ‘It’s thoughtful of you and Grace to organise this for us.’
‘Oh, Hugh, it’s our pleasure,’ Mum says, her tone transformed.
‘Now, we won’t have either of you paying for it,’ Hugh explains firmly. ‘I’ll sort that out with Kate when we get back. No arguments. But a break is probably what we both need, for different reasons.’
Hugh has reasons? Have I become so absorbed in my own problems that I’ve neglected to check in on his? I know he errs on the side of undersharing his personal life and seems to have it all together, nearly all the time, but I feel like a very bad friend if I’ve missed something important. Perhaps a weekend away could fix a few things.
‘Mum, what if Charlie isn’t on board with this plan?’ I ask. I couldn’t possibly relax if I knew he was pining for me.
‘Oh, he’ll be ecstatic about a weekend with Grace. I must tell you, he made up a distressing story about you having had some sort of police incident over a bomb, Katherine. Said he would have brought the bomb to school for show and tell but it exploded in Sydney. Do you think he needs more counselling?’
No, but I think I do.
‘Where the child inherited this propensity for dramatics I’ll never know,’ she adds, wrapping up the call as the cab pulls up along the main street in Bangalow. ‘Maybe he’ll be the writer in the family.’
Two hours later, we’ve caffeinated and confirmed that Bangalow bakery is indeed a state leader in jam donuts, caught an Uber to a Byron Bay car-hire service and picked up a cute little MG3. Back on the highway again, we head north, past the escarpment that rises from Ewingsdale and Myocum, towards Mount Chincogan, near Mullumbimby. In the distance, the silhouette of the ancient volcanic plug of Mount Warning rises out of the haze.
‘I hope that’s not a sign!’ I nod at the mountain as I drive.
Hugh flicks through a tourist brochure he picked up at the car hire office. ‘It’s okay. It’s not known as Mount Warning any more,’ he explains as he reads. ‘To the Bundjalung people it’s Wollumbin. The scars on the mountainside are said to be the battle wounds of warrior spirits.’
Battle wounds of warrior spirits.
Something within me longs to emulate that mountain. Wants to erupt with such violence and heat and force that the very foundations can’t hold. An inevitable collapse. A changed shape rising out of falling ash – scarred, strong and with an afterlife so fertile and mineral-rich, luscious rainforest springs from the soil for millions of years . . .
The knowledge that I’m not there yet – that I haven’t erupted and collapsed and cooled and grown solid after all this time – stings. I’ve worked so hard. Wanted so much to intellectualise and overcome my loss. I’ve read the literature. Joined support groups. Had counselling. Yet, here I am, years in, still pushing myself up the wrong side of this mountain.
Car window down, I gulp warm air and blink back tears behind dark glasses.
‘Have you ever felt homesick for somewhere you’ve never lived?’ Hugh asks, intruding into my thoughts as I head up the highway, watching for the turn-off to Ocean Shores.
‘This hinterland reminds me of Ireland,’ I tell him. I sound as if I’m an authority on the subject, despite never having been. ‘My great-grandparents were from County Fermanagh. They eloped when their parents disapproved of the match.’
‘Plucky. I like it.’
‘Three generations in a row eloped for the same reason. I can’t work out if that makes our family incredibly romantic, or incredibly judgemental. Either way, yes. I’m homesick for Ireland.’
‘It wasn’t on your Adventure list,’ he informs me. ‘Not in red or green.’
Surely it must have been. It’s in my blood. It’s not just a desire to visit. It’s a calling, across time. Hugh must be wrong.
We pass Brunswick Heads, cross the river and wind through wide streets and alongside Marshall’s Creek until we reach the beachside hamlet of New Brighton. I’m still thinking about Ireland as I pull the car into Terrace Street and Hugh directs me into the driveway of the house Grace booked. It makes an unassuming first impression. Garage frontage and a rickety wooden fence lined with grevilleas and agapanthus.
‘Sit tight while I grab the key,’ Hugh suggests, and he heads into the neighbour’s place to collect it – no fancy lockbox arrangement here.
I stay in the car, door ajar, one foot on the ground, leaning against the headrest and listening to the raw energy of the waves as they pound the nearby beach. Late winter sun beats through the fabric of my lined skirt until it’s so hot I have to move my leg into the shade. Having come from such an icy start, for me this is T-shirt weather.
I pull down the visor and check my face in the mirror. It’s official: I am one of the walking dead. Pale skin, dark circles, drawn face, hair still flattened from the motorcycle helmet. Chances of snaring one of Mum’s hipster vagabonds for a sneaky holiday romp: nil.
‘Ready?’ Hugh says, rounding the car and waving the key at me.
Not as such, no. I don’t think we gave this harebrained scheme enough consideration. Regardless, I get out of the car and pull my bag from the back seat. I’d packed for one night, not three. My plans for this business trip had included two quick meetings （same skirt, two shirts, shoes） and room service and Netflix （PJs, toothbrush, deodorant）。 I can’t turn up to a beachside writer’s festival in a business suit and heels. Or in pyjamas.
We push through the gate and follow stepping stones past a segregated guest room and up to the two-storey, treated-timber beach house. Firewood has been tipped into an iron drum on the verandah, beside a doormat that reads ‘Beach people’。 Kindred spirits. And as Hugh turns the key and pushes the door ajar, I step inside and fall in love at first sight.
It’s a converted fishing shack from the sixties. Rustic, cosy and extended in sections, with much of it genuinely untouched rather than deliberately retro. Deep velvet couches sit on wooden floorboards beside the freestanding fireplace. Mismatched bookshelves line the walls, crammed with dog-eared copies of Grisham and Christie and Steel. Old boardgames are stacked in frayed boxes with split corners, held together by masking tape. Decks of playing cards wrapped in rubber bands lean against DVDs of Richard Curtis rom-coms, Midsomer Murders and Yes Minister. Macramé decorations, crafted long before Pinterest made it cool again, hang from pieces of driftwood on the walls.