Hamish Bourke locked his office door and drove home as the sun slipped behind the ranges. After a grinding week at the office he looked forward to his weekend access with Dwayne, starting with a happy roll-around on the carpet with his toddler son. Lately, Honey Biggs, Dwayne’s mother, hadn’t always stuck to the arrangements for Dwayne’s handover to his father. The always-fragile relationship between Hamish and Honey had gone belly-up a year ago. He moved out of the home he’d bought for the three of them, then rented a cottage across the street to make it easier to co-parent the son he loved.
Honey’s car was gone from her carport. Most likely she’d taken Dwayne to her parents, and gone out on the town. It was Friday night after all — the night it all happened at the local pub. Hamish walked up to the front door of the house, clinging to hope. The little boy would be waiting to see his father. He knocked, rang the doorbell. The house stood silent. Hamish sighed and walked back to his car. Over the past year, Honey had gone from bad to worse. Lately, she’d taken to locking Dwayne in the house during his afternoon sleep and heading for the pub. ‘Just for a coffee, darl, maybe a quick little drink. I’m always back before he wakes.’ Hamish knew, the neighbours knew, that often she’d come home late, and drunk. Sometimes, the neighbours told him, Dwayne would be awake and crying. How would the traumatised little boy react to a mother who acted ‘strangely’ when, eventually, she came home?
Hamish decided to grab a quick shower, and dash to the Golden Dragon. Starvation made any other option impossible. As he towelled himself dry, he recalled again the woman client who’d turned his last hour upside down. He pictured the face, mouthed the name: Erin Spenser. Any guy would call her beautiful. The first sight of that slender, shapely body would fire a bomb into a man’s hormone bank — and lead to the too-obvious physical response he’d felt as she walked in and looked up into his face. For those electrifying first moments, she’d reduced him to mumbling monosyllables as she took the chair opposite, powder-blue eyes probing his. She had some of her grandmother’s features: those wide-set eyes, the cute upturned nose. But her youthful beauty was all her own; the sweep of golden hair washing over her shoulders, and those lips — small, bow-shaped, seductive. Any straight man under ninety would want to kiss them the second he got the opportunity.
But the woman’s plastic, citified values had surfaced. She’d as good as said she’d sell Edna Spenser’s beautiful property the minute she could. What was it about city people? They put money above everything — healthy living, taking care of the planet, honouring an old woman’s dream to restore her property to its original pristine loveliness. Forget Erin Spenser, he ordered himself. You have a partner and a son. He brushed his towel over his face one last time, flicked it so that it cracked like a horsewhip, and hung it on the rail. He’d best get on down to the Golden Dragon. Hunger made a man aggressive.
Erin allowed herself the luxury of a slow dawdle from the cottage to the Golden Dragon. It would be good to stroll past the old shops, the heritage town hall with its lichened classic sandstone portal, the war memorial with the names of dead Luna Bay soldiers. She needed a distraction from the pain of the inevitable. She must sell the cottage, and soon. Her mother’s cardiologist had hinted that given his patient’s worsening health, she might have only months to live unless she had expensive major surgery.
All through Erin’s childhood, Helen Spenser had struggled with mortgage payments, keeping a roof over their heads, never quite letting go of the hope that one day her straying husband might return. On the last lap of her exhausting marathon, Helen had won the financial tussle to enrol her daughter in a prestigious art school. Not that the school hadn’t been a good investment. Erin had shown talent way back in kindergarten. Now she made an acceptable living doing what she loved — writing and drawing for Possum Publishing.
Erin arrived at the restaurant, stared up at the doorway draped with the familiar gold-painted carving of a scary dragon. She stepped inside. The Golden Dragon was empty except for proprietor Andy Chan. Erin and Andy had known each other since childhood, back when she spent the summers with her grandmother. The two children had come to know each other through Grandma Spenser’s shameless addiction to Chinese cuisine. The spicy perfume dragged Erin back to those days as she walked in.
‘Hi Erin.’ Andy looked up from his laptop on the counter. ‘Good to see you again. Sorry to hear about your grandmother. Lovely lady. Will we be seeing a bit more of you? Now you’ve inherited Lovers’ Lookout?’
‘Thanks, Andy.’ Erin flinched inside. So the Luna Bay grapevine was still working. ‘That’s a big question,’ she smiled. ‘Too big for right now.’ She cast an eye over the spread of empty tables right down to the big tank of goldfish near the kitchen doorway. As a child, she’d spent hours spellbound by those goldfish during dinners with Grandma Spenser. ‘It’s quiet tonight,’ she said, nudging away from the touchy subject of her plans for the property.
‘Yeah. That’s busy downtown Luna Bay,’ Andy smiled. ‘You’d see more action in a cemetery at midnight. Thought I’d grab some time to get the accounts sorted.’ He closed his laptop. ‘Like to order, Erin? Or do you need to go and say hi to your fish?’
‘Order first, fish later. I’ll have the usual, thanks Andy.’
‘Short soup, plus pork noodles in hoi sin sauce, sprinkled with chopped raisins.’ Andy scribbled on his pad. ‘I can hear my Hong Kong grandmother turning in her grave.’ He slipped out to the kitchen run by his mother, Rosie.
Her meal arrived. Guiltily, she picked at it with her chopsticks. Grandma Spenser’s ghost sat opposite, quiet, reproachful. How could Erin enjoy her dinner while that gloomy presence watched her?
Hamish Bourke checked his watch as he stepped into the Golden Dragon. He’d eat quickly and get back to the office. The application for the Department of Environment funding for the wetlands restoration project was due on Monday. Lately, he spent more time on voluntary Landcare matters than on working for a fee — not good for his fledgling practice. But the funding application was important. Extremely important. The orange-bellied tree frog whose habitat was under threat might exit Planet Earth if the wetlands project didn’t happen. He stared into the restaurant’s gloom. It was empty but for a woman, blonde hair cascading over her shoulders. She sat with her back to him at the corner table near the fish tank. Chopsticks in hand, she turned as he walked in. He stared, then recognised Erin Spenser.
‘Hi,’ she called when she saw him looking hard in her direction.
‘Er, hi,’ he answered. Those lips, that cute pointy nose, the smile, set his heart racing again. He’d come to the restaurant for a quick meal. Now he’d have to be polite, waste time. A couple of hours before, as Erin stood to leave his office, he’d given himself an order. Keep your distance from that woman and don’t get ideas.
‘Staying for dinner?’ Her smile invited him.
‘Well…I…’ Hamish found himself stuck for words again. The scene was set for a replay of the afternoon at the office. He stepped towards her table.
Andy walked in from the kitchen carrying a folder of loose papers. ‘You two know each other?’
‘We do.’ Erin grinned at Andy. ‘Luna Bay’s a pretty small town. Mr Bourke and I met this afternoon.’ Andy walked back to the counter and his laptop.
‘Is it okay to call you Hamish?’ she said, looking up at him as he stood beside her. ‘You said you were Hamish to your friends. I don’t want to presume —’
‘Oh, of course.’ He cleared his throat. ‘Hamish. Please.’
‘The usual for you too, Hamish?’ Andy called from the counter.
‘Yes, thanks Andy.’
‘Singapore noodles,’ Andy confirmed. ‘Vegetarian?’
‘Of course.’
‘So, we’re not going to be adventurous tonight then?’ Andy said as he headed for the kitchen.
‘Would you like to join me?’ Erin eyed the chair opposite.
‘Well, thanks.’ He eased out the chair and sat. She used the moment to take in his shoulders again. She’d try to help him relax. His X-ray stare was getting to be rather too much.
‘Pardon my mentioning this — it’s a bit forward,’ he said, still awkward. She half-smiled, curious. ‘What is it about you, Erin? Your face? Whenever I look at you up close, something goes click.’ He paused, smiled across at her. ‘Have we met before?’
‘Since you ask, yes,’ she said. He stared at her again. ‘Roll your mind back to a certain summer afternoon at Luna Bay,’ she said. ‘Twelve years ago. A lifeguard sits on a lookout tower, keeping an eye on the beach.’
‘I used to do lifeguard duty at Luna Bay,’ he said. ‘When I came home for university vacations.’ He pointed. ‘Were you—’
‘I swam there. I spent pretty much every summer holiday at Lovers’ Lookout with my Grandma.’
‘So you told me.’
‘And one day, when I was surfing, a rip dragged me way out past the breakers. It scared me — really scared me.’
‘A lot of inexperienced surfers get caught in that rip. It comes in strong around half-tide, usually. We always fish them out, give them the lecture, and send them on their way.’
‘You didn’t give me the lecture.’
‘I rescued you?’
‘Yes.’
He stared into her face again. ‘It’s coming back. The little red bikini, the long blonde hair. The big scared eyes. You couldn’t have been more than—’
‘Sixteen.’
‘So that’s it.’ He beamed. ‘Ever since you showed up this afternoon, I’ve had this…feeling.’
Erin began to feel something too. Something that came from thinking about a certain lifesaver’s taut, tanned body. Lying over her own near-nakedness as he paddled her back to the beach. She must click back to the Golden Dragon, the here-and-now.
‘I had the feeling too,’ she admitted. ‘Right from when you talked to me in the parking lot.’
‘But you figured it out faster than I did.’ His smile told her he was relaxing at last. ‘Women,’ he grinned. ‘Like all the books say, they’re quicker on the uptake than guys.’
‘Well then.’ She’d take the opportunity that had come on a plate, so to speak. ‘Now we’ve put that to bed, can we talk a bit more about my property?’ she said. ‘I’d like your ideas, please. About what I should do with it until it’s ready to sell.’
‘I already told you. You have a very valuable piece of real estate, and…’ He looked away.
‘Yes, but I sensed that you were holding back. Making sure you didn’t say anything out of place. Being all — professional.’ She smiled, giving him some space. He smiled back, still silent. ‘Can I have some more of your unprofessional advice? Not the five-second grab this time. We have all night.’
‘My advice will be…biased.’
‘Do go on,’ she said.
‘Okay. But first, a legal disclaimer.’ He actually grinned. ‘You should know I’m a member of Luna Bay Landcare. The secretary, actually.’ His grin widened. ‘Sorry, I don’t have a tidy hairdo and nice nails.’ He flexed his hands and she looked at them. They were man’s hands — big, work-toughened. Not like you’d expect a lawyer’s hands to look. She recalled again those hands hauling her out of the rip onto his surfboard. Then she pictured Todd’s merchant banker hands — pale, fingers tending towards chubby, nails perfectly manicured.
‘Luna Bay Landcare? What exactly is that?’
‘Hmm. City types. They couldn’t be expected to know.’ He drew breath. ‘All over the country, locals get together to care for their land. Replace wicked invasive foreign plants with local good guys — get the ecology back into shape. Australia’s had some serious ecological disasters — rabbits, cactus, cane toads. And more around the corner if we don’t fight them. The government puts literally billions into Landcare to pay for plants, tools, professional managers.’
‘No kidding?’
‘Yep. And often, we Landcare people have a fight on our hands,’ Hamish continued, turning his own hands palms upward. ‘At the moment, it’s a special bit of remnant wetland. An endangered tree frog species. And a bulldozer-happy developer.
‘Tell me more,’ she said. He’d changed. His eyes glowed. He flexed his hands again, drawing her eyes to them.
‘Well —’
‘Go on. I’m all ears.’
‘Actually, that battle’s pretty much won.’ He eased back in his chair. ‘I warn you. If I get started on Landcare, we’ll be here all night.’
‘We have all night,’ she reminded him. ‘I need to know local stuff. Local heroes.’
‘So you’ve decided to move in?’
‘Well, no. I just got to own a bit of real estate for a moment in time. That hardly qualifies me as a local.’
‘Such a pity you’re not moving in. I simply can’t understand it.’ She sneaked a look at his face. Anger glowed beneath the forced fake smile.
‘Well, I have a job in the city, friends, my own little pad. And I told you about my sick mother.’
‘If you have the tiniest smidgeon of your grandmother’s genes,’ Hamish said, ‘you’ll find you can’t bring yourself to sell it.’
‘Mmm.’ Erin must tread carefully. ‘I remember the cliff-top walks we used to do. Grandma always carried a plastic sack and secateurs. When we came to a weed, she’d snip it and throw it into the sack. When I grew big enough, she promoted me to chief sack carrier. That sack got pretty heavy by the time we made it back to the cottage.’ She sneaked another look at him, saw his eyes caressing her as she talked. She needed a breather. ‘Tell me how a nice boy like you got mixed up with Grandma.’
‘I grew up not ten kilometres from here.’ He waved towards the range. ‘My people raised beef cattle. Which is why I wanted to get into law school.’
‘You didn’t like beef cattle?’
‘I didn’t like what happens to your favourite cow when she reaches a certain weight. In other words, I was a misfit around these parts.’
‘I must confess to enjoying a steak now and again,’ Erin admitted, remembering Hamish had ordered vegetarian. ‘But do go on.’
‘It all began ten years ago,’ he began. ‘When Edna first heard about Landcare. She couldn’t wait to set up a local branch. Tore round town like a wild animal, sinking her fangs into anybody who wasn’t quick enough to run. I was one of her first victims. I spent summer holidays on the farm with my folks while I studied, and in my early years in the profession, with one of those big international law partnerships.
‘Those huge firms with fancy names and hundreds of lawyers on their staff?’ Erin asked. ‘I thought they hired only the crème de la crème of law school graduates. And paid them squillions.’
‘Well…I did do pretty well at my studies,’ he said. ‘I was the nerd from Central Casting.’ Erin mentally smacked herself for her gaffe. ‘They grabbed me, sent me to New York for a year. Told me I’d make it to partner — and zillions of dollars — in a few years. If I behaved myself.’
‘So you misbehaved?’
He took a bite from the tangle of noodles on his chopsticks. ‘When Edna showed me what was really going on around The Bay, I saw a huge disaster looming. I saw that if no one took a stand, the place where I was born would be a weedy jungle in a few years. Or a great big quarry. Or else, another slab of suburbia. The habitat for our beautiful Aussie wildlife would be gone forever.
‘That would be terrible. But…’
‘So I quit my city job and came home.’
‘But —’
‘I know, I know.’ He spread his hands. ‘If I’d stayed, I’d be a millionaire by now. Probably living in one of those glitzy high-rise apartment blocks on the harbour. Know the price of everything and the value of nothing, as the old saying goes.’ Erin cringed as she remembered her last dinner with Todd.
‘Soon Edna told me I was the only one in The Bay who could take on the heavyweights — get a grip on the legal fine print of what they were doing. Then organise protests to stop those wicked developers raping the place. Write applications for government grants — all that stuff.’
He paused. She sensed his guilt over letting his hobby horse gallop away with him, his awareness that he should get back to being civilised dinner company. He twirled another bundle of noodles onto his chopsticks.
‘Then one summer Edna just happened to leak a bit of local gossip to me. Old Tom Parker, The Bay’s one and only lawyer, was selling up and moving to an old folks’ home. It seemed Tom liked me so much, he sold me his practice for a song. I reckon Edna had something to do with that. So here I am.’ He stopped to draw breath as he captured the last few noodles on his plate.
‘Don’t you, well, miss some of those fancy creature comforts that go with city living?’ Erin asked, struggling with the revelation. The man had turned his back on a millionaire lifestyle most people would kill for.
‘I’d rather work on saving habitat for an endangered frog than help some greedy multinational corporation gobble up another innocent local company,’ he said. ‘And now I’m getting more and more of the work I like, from bigger and bigger outfits. So it’s not such lean pickings these days. All round the world, people are realising that we’ve only got one planet, so we’d better look after it.’ He took a breath. ‘Anyway, now it’s your turn,’ he flicked a hand towards Erin. ‘What are you going to do with that beautiful property of yours?’
Hamish had bared his soul to her. She’d better reciprocate.
‘I will have to sell it. Sooner rather than later.’
‘As you told me this afternoon,’ he said. ‘I couldn’t believe you. Not that beautiful place. It’s unique, spiritual.’
She caught the feisty glow in his eye before he turned away. Erin had hit the nerve she’d sensed lay just under the man’s genial skin. Now the truth was out, she’d continue. ‘My mother…my parents split when I was eight…she has a heart condition. It will soon become life-threatening, her specialist says. Years of struggle as a single mother, a mortgage that’s a dead weight round her neck.’ She paused. ‘And there’s my job.’
‘What’s that?’
‘I write children’s books. Write and illustrate. It’s mostly drawing, actually.’
‘Can’t wait to see your work,’ he said. ‘But couldn’t you draw pictures here in Luna Bay? Maybe better pictures than you do now? Isn’t it just possible the view from your workbench might inspire you?’
‘Well, I have to spend a lot of time with my publisher, so it’s —’ As his words hit her, she realised he had a point. She mustn’t give in.
‘Luna Bay’s only a few hours’ drive from your publisher’s office.’ Hamish chased an imaginary noodle around his empty bowl. ‘And there’s technology, remember. Lots of Bay locals work from home these days. Anna Kershaw, my neighbour. A financial journalist for AMC Press. She finds a Sydney visit about once every second Pancake Day is enough.’
For no reason, Erin grimaced. She’d seen the slick journalist’s photo heading her column. Dressed to kill, the often-quoted Anna Kershaw was Hamish’s neighbour. Why had she taken an instant dislike to a woman she’d never met, Erin asked herself. She didn’t get a straight answer.
‘It’s my mother,’ she continued. ‘She really needs to feel I’m there for her. Know that I’ll call around every few days.’ She’d always loved her mother, the woman who’d overcome so much to raise her. ‘She could end up in care at any time. Or…worse.’ Erin stopped short. Every time she remembered her mother could die suddenly of a heart attack, she reeled from a vicious stab to her stomach. ‘Her doctor’s warned her often enough, and told me she really needs expensive surgery. I have to be there for her.’
‘Bring her down here for a few months. Until you get the house into shape, ready to sell.’ Hamish wasn’t a quitter. ‘There’s a big hospital half an hour’s drive from here. Your cottage is big enough for two. And a sight healthier than the smog-choked city.’ Whatever that annoying man said, it made sense. It was putting her off her dinner.
‘All her friends live in her neighbourhood,’ Erin countered half-heartedly. ‘And she, well, she says she’d die without her friends.’
‘Which is more important, her friends or her sweet, caring daughter?’ Hamish fired back. He’d morphed into a lawyer putting a case to court. ‘And I assure you, the Luna Bay ladies will take her under their warm feathery wings the minute she shows up here. You don’t understand the horsepower that team can churn out when they decide to help someone.’
Erin accepted that it was time to give up. Sure, she loved the idea of spending an occasional week in Luna Bay’s rustic peace and quiet. But the city, with its 24/7 pulsing life, its shops, cafés, theatres, and people, its chemistry, had shaped her life since birth. At heart, she was, would always be, a Sydney girl. Hamish Bourke would never understand that. Erin liked Luna Bay, but she loved Sydney. She couldn’t live two lives — city and country. She’d change the subject.
‘Okay,’ she said. ‘Sounds like you’re the perfect guy to advise me about my property. How to tidy it up.’
‘I did suggest that you spend some time on the place — real time, not the quick sprint along the cliff-top path. Listen to what the land has to tell you.’
‘You mean listen to the trees? So trees really can talk?’
‘Sure they can. The ancient Druids said they could, and anybody with half an ear open can hear them.’
Was this smart lawyer telling the truth as he saw it? She’d assume he was just dangling a cute metaphor to draw her in — better that she play along with it.
‘Fine. So I can hear what the trees are trying to tell me if I go for a walk through the property? Maybe hug one or two as I go?’
‘That might help,’ he said. ‘But I hear them loud and clear every time I take a walk there, and I haven’t taken to hugging one yet. It’s all about being open to listening.’
‘And how do I get to be open to listening? Remember, I’m pretty new to tree talk.’
‘Well…’ He hesitated. ‘I suppose it’s alright to tell you this. Since you own the place now.’
Erin looked hard into his face. What was he holding back?
‘Did your grandmother ever tell you about the Sea Eagle’s Nest?’ he asked eventually.
‘No.’
‘Well then. I suppose I’d better.’ He leaned back in his chair. She sensed he was less than sure about sharing this secret with her. ‘You know your land falls away pretty steeply towards the sea? Right at the highest point, where the cottage overlooks the ocean.’
‘Yes. I’ve never been down there. It’s scary. A sheer cliff.’
‘You’re right. Which is a good thing. There’s a rope ladder tucked away in your shed. If you take that ladder, and your courage, in both hands, and head towards the cliff, you can hook the ladder to a tree, shimmy down, and find yourself at a pretty exciting place — Sea Eagle’s Nest, Edna called it. It’s a little cave — not much more than a cleft in the rock, actually. Don’t know how Edna found it, but she did.’ He paused, steepled his hands. Satisfied he’d hooked her, he carried on.
‘She set it up as a little shrine to her dead husband. Furnished it with the basics — bed, table and chair, running water. She showed it to me and said I could stay there any time. And I have, a couple of times. It’s a beautiful place. Spiritual, she called it. She’d go there when she wanted to sort out something in her life — something deep. She might spend a few days there. Take a backpack with food, drinking water, a few books, some writing paper. It was like going back into the earth’s womb, she said. So —’
‘You’re suggesting I go there? To figure out what to do with the property?’
‘Yes. It was made for thinking through big decisions.’
Erin stared at him. Was he telling the truth? Was he…weird?
‘You asked me for my advice about what to do with your property,’ he said. ‘That’s it.’
‘Mmm. I don’t know that I’m up for something that scary.’
‘I could show you. Help you with the ladder and stuff.’ He seemed genuine. And she’d pressured him for his advice, professional and otherwise.
‘Okay,’ she said quickly, before she lost her nerve.
‘When would you like to do it?’ At last, a friendly look flickered across his face.
‘I have all the time in the world,’ she said. ‘Your call.’
‘Tomorrow? Since it’s Saturday.’
‘Fine. Say around ten?’
‘It’s a deal,’ he said, and parked his chopsticks on the little china rest.
‘How was your dinner?’ she said, to change the subject.
‘Loved it. You like Chinese too?’
‘Yes,’ she said. ‘Not that there’s much choice in Luna Bay.’
‘Oh, but there is, well, not exactly within walking distance.’ His face brightened. ‘Half an hour’s drive away, up in the hills, there’s the leafy ambience of Highlands Hall, weekend hideaway for the rich and famous.’
‘You’re kidding.’
‘No. Best kept secret around these parts. The owners don’t want to attract local yokels. They restrict themselves to absolute highest level business clients. Secret government briefings and workshops with foreign delegations. The big international corporations use Highlands Hall too — for confidential dinners and such. Often, the attendees’ partners join them for post-workshop weekends. It’s a beautiful place to relax. Ornamental gardens, a lake, complete with a bridge straight out of a Monet painting. Fabulous cuisine. A spectacular ballroom even.’
‘How do you know?’
‘I often get speaking gigs there. Talking about forest regeneration, usually. My specialty. It seems conservation is showing up on the radar for big business at last.’
‘And the post-workshop weekends with partner,’ Erin asked. ‘How have you found those?’
‘Um…I haven’t…er…not…er…me.’ Hamish actually blushed. Erin winced in sympathy. So Hamish Bourke didn’t want to talk about his partner. Totally out of character for a smart lawyer, he’d fallen in an awkward heap when she’d asked him out of the blue.
He pushed his plate aside. ‘Must go. A grant application to finish. Excuse me.’ Erin watched him walk to the counter, pay his bill, and step out into the dark. So Hamish Bourke had a partner. Most people did. But what was he trying to hide?