Friday in Summer

Were there two heads or one? I sat on the rock gathering warmth about me while Hamish scrambled as quickly as he could to the water’s edge, towel and blanket at the ready. Only one blanket was necessary, with the Dodger walking himself unsteadily and slowly to the rock beneath the statue commemorating the working sheep dog that had been erected on the shore of Lake Tekapo.
I cried while the Dodger dressed himself under the blanket in Hamish’s offerings. He sat close to me, putting his arm around my shoulders when he was dressed and wrapped still in the blanket.

‘He did come through the gate, Janice, but he was dead when I came through. I left him in the lake.’ I really don’t know whether I wanted to know that.

The sun rose. We sat in silence. Pachelbal’s canon had finished and tourists were arriving in a big white bus. We said our goodbyes to Jasper. I placed a small smooth white stone from the lake front at the feet of the bronze dog. The Dodger and Hamish did the same. In our stockinged feet, we walked to the rental car, raising a few eyebrows amongst the early morning tourists.

The hardest part of my return to this reality was going to be explaining to my mother why I had suddenly gone off to New Zealand with Jonathan Douglass. Telling her that we went with an old school mate of his, Hamish McKenzie, wouldn’t really help matters. He may have been sports captain at Seaport, but his father had turned up in our backyard, stark naked, so what was the son like?

We decided to lie. Not a very big lie. Just a long one: two and a half thousand kilometres long. We were going to be in, not the wonder and glory of Lake Tekapo, but the hustle and bustle of Melbourne. The Dodger and I, evidently, had been introduced to the movies of Stanley Kubric on Friday, and were going to catch the exhibit tomorrow at the ACMI where several early Stanley Kubric classics were being screened. Hamish had also convinced us, I told my mother, that we should come into Melbourne to see the films that some of his friends at the VCA School of Film and TV had produced. Hadn’t Liam told them. We’d seen him when I came back for some clothes yesterday, I lied. We’d stayed last night at a friend’s flat, and would be back home on Monday. It helped that Hamish had a friend at VCA who had produced a film for the graduate screenings.

The hardest part was lying about Jasper. I would be the only one in my family who knew that he was lying on the bottom of a lake in New Zealand. The story for our parents was going to involve a run in the country as we were driving home, from which he did not return.

The Dodger, during his previous trip from the Valley, had spoken to his mother during her lunch-break on Friday, explaining the trip into Melbourne, so she wasn’t expecting to hear from him during the weekend. He phoned her anyway. There had been a burglar in the garden shed last night, she said, but when the police arrived they couldn’t find anything untoward. They told her she should get a lock put on it, but really what did Jonno think of knocking it down?

‘Sounds like a good idea, mum, but wait ‘til I get home ok?’ She laughed wryly and asked him how it was going.

‘Fine.’ There are some benefits in having a reputation for noncommunicating.

There was a knock at his mother’s door. She said she’d phone the Dodger back once she found out what it was the police wanted this time. He forestalled her, saying he would ring when he got back from the bathroom. Hamish returned at this stage and we ate breakfast. It was strange to need to eat again. I found I had no desire for food, but had to force myself to eat when I got a tad scratchy with the boys.

The Dodger phoned his mum. The difference between this conversation and the last was enormous. We could hear the excited voice on the other end. The Dodger could hardly get a word in edge-wise.

The police had reopened the investigation into Mr Douglass’s death. They had taken the walking stick, ok shepherd’s crook, she corrected herself, from the garden shed, and they had listened to her story of the intruder last night again. There’d be more to talk about on Sunday night, when he got back. No, he should have a good time in town with his friends. She was fine.
He said it was the first time in a year that he really believed she was fine.

It was taking a bit of getting used to, being back in the world of time, especially because looking out the front window, the land looked and felt so much like the Valley. Food, tiredness, pain when I stubbed my toe coming out of the bathroom: hard to come back from paradise.

‘Where’s the money coming from for all this?’ I asked.

‘Ah. I hope you can pay me back for some of it. We’re using my hard-earned Uni fees at the moment.’ Hamish admitted.
‘Actually, I’ll repay you for all that.’ The Dodger interrupted. ‘My father’s family have put money aside for generations to cover anything like this. Even when they were at their most needy, they never touched it. When Dad told me about it, I thought it was just another sign of what a fruit-cake he was becoming.

‘My dad had a McKenzie Country fund. He called it that. I thought it was money we were saving to go on holiday with, but clearly it was to cover any costs related to the Valley. I think, maybe it’s been around since my family had enough spare cash to put aside. Dad added the account to my card when I was thirteen. I guess this is exactly what it was all being saved for. I’ll pay for our airfares and stuff with the card. You did bring the card, Hamish?’ It was produced.

Our alibis were told. The tickets for home were booked. We had the rest of Saturday, and Sunday morning to recuperate. Now what? I wondered.