Heather's Exquisite Map of Tassie

After breakfast they drove across to the western shore and up to the northern suburbs. Heather described an imaginary boundary she called 'the flannelette curtain', marking the line between higher socioeconomic suburbs to the south and the working class northern suburbs where people were more than likely attired in plaid flannelette shirts and tracksuits pants, or as she put it, "flannos and trackie-dacks."

"G'day, love," Heather's father said. He was as tall as Tim, but with curly grey hair and a scruffy bushy grey beard, walking with a prominent limp under his tracksuit pants, looking a shadow of the vigorous young man in the photographs on Heather's living room wall.

"Hi, Dad. This is Tim. He's Ryan's housemate. He took Ry's ticket after, well, you know."

"G'day, cobber. Good to meet ya." Despite his frail appearance his handshake was a vice.

"Pleasure to meet you too, Mr Coughlan."

Heather's father snorted, but smiled. "Only me landlord calls me Mr Coughlan. Me name's Max, cobber."

While Max made them cups of tea in his tiny kitchen, Tim looked around the small ground floor unit, noting its Spartan appearance with few possessions. And yet it still looked unkempt and a little grotty, with grimy walls that maybe were once white, and outside the front door he'd noticed a small round table with an ashtray full of cigarette butts.

There were several photographs on an old sideboard, including one of Heather and Ryan as children, wearing black martial arts uniforms with blue and yellow belt sashes respectively, and each holding up a trophy and sporting gapped-tooth smiles. There was a photo of Ryan as a pimply teen with a curly blond mullet and wearing a football jersey, looking much fitter than his adult self, plus another of Ryan at his university graduation, holding his degree scroll and smiling at the camera with mortar-board cap on head, mullet no longer evident. Another photo was of their older brother, who was quite a handsome, if effeminate fair haired young man without the muscle tone of his two younger siblings, sitting on grass and playing with the same Alsatian from the family photo in Heather's living room.

And there was one photograph of a beautiful young woman with long blond hair and smile similar to Heather's, leaning on the black bonnet of a yellow Holden Torana, with a beach and the ocean in the background. It was clearly Heather's mother in her younger days, most likely her early twenties. "The two loves of Dad's life," Heather whispered over Tim's shoulder, pointing to the photo. "Mum and our old v-eight Torry."

There was a recent photo of Heather at her police academy graduation, looking smart in a navy-blue uniform. And then there was a double frame with two more photographs of Heather which drew Tim's interest. The first was of an eighteen year-old Heather looking immaculately attired in khaki dress uniform, including slouch hat, standing straight faced at ridged attention and surrounded by identically uniformed soldiers, all holding assault rifles down at their sides on the parade ground.

The second photograph sharing the double frame was of Heather, still in dress khakis, and a well-groomed Max in a suit and an aluminium crutch leaning against his side, neither posing for the camera but taken in the moment. The photo was perfectly focused on daughter and father as they faced one another, arms reaching out as if about to hug; Heather's eyes bright and mouth in an open smile, appearing to be laughing, and Max smiling warmly, his deep pride in his daughter's achievement written all over his face. The background of other soldiers and their families was a blur, the occasion captured as if the two subjects were all who mattered in the world.

"This was a beautiful moment," Tim whispered to Heather, his heart welling deeply with emotion.

"My march out parade at Kapooka," she stated simply. "Seems like a lifetime ago."

They sat and chatted, drinking tea and eating Milk Arrowroot biscuits, Heather filling her father in on their recent hike and Max discussing his thoughts on the AFL season which recently began. Max asked Tim about Ryan's leg, stating, "He hardly phones me. He likes to keep me in the dark. Probably didn't want to upset me about his leg."

Tim assured Max he'd ask Ryan to call, and Max was reluctant for Tim trouble himself, given Ryan was his own man. Before they departed, Heather helped her father tidy up a little, Tim giving her a hand, and in the laundry they found a sooty old bong.

"Dad, you should hide this better when I'm coming over," she said with an affectionate tone.

"Sorry, love. I didn't think you'd see it. Sorry." He looked downcast, like a child caught doing something wrong.

Heather put the vessel down and gave her father a big hug. "I'll be back on Sunday afternoon after I drop Tim to the airport. You let me know if ya need anything, okay."

As they sat in her car, Heather said to Tim, "Let's go to the top of the mountain. We should get a great view today." It was a nice day with a blue sky and hardly a cloud to be seen. She told Tim her father's story as she drove them through Hobart towards the mountain. "It's been about fourteen years since Dad's accident. He's a proud man, but he's a stubborn man. God, he's stubborn. Every week I offer him to come and live with me, rent free, but he refuses. Reckons he'll be a burden, but that's bullshit. I've told him so too."

"I saw the photo of you and him on your wall. He, ah, looked a lot like Ryan does, but way more athletic and with a massive moustache."

"Yeah, Ryan took after Dad the most in the looks department. If Ryan didn't sit on his arse at a computer all the time and still played sport and grew a David Boon moustache he'd be the dead-spit of Dad in his younger days. He also has Dad's quirky sense of humour, which I'm sure you've experienced back home."

"Yeah, your brother sure is a funny bastard."

She paused and breathed in deep. "He's got Dad's generosity too. He'd do anything for anyone."

"Yeah, I know. He wouldn't even allow me to pay him for his tickets to fly here. He just gave them to me."

"Doesn't surprise me at all. Ryan's almost every bit like Dad, 'cept he's better with technology. He's the first in our family to go to uni. Funny though, he might look like Dad but he's definitely Mummy's boy." She said it with a little smile. "I've always been Daddy's girl, but never his little princess like some girls. Our older brother, Justin, well, he took after Mum in more ways than one, but he was always, um, a bit lost." She sighed. "But Dad was a force of nature and did so much for us. Before his accident he took everything life threw at him in his stride, and with a smile. He worked with a smile, played footy with a smile. Even did the dishes most nights with a smile before it became one of our evening chores."

She paused and Tim wondered if she was finished talking, but then she continued. "Dad was the kind of bloke who'd be anyone's mate seconds after meeting them, and everyone loved him. He couldn't sit still for even a second. On weekends or after work he was the one who took us to little athletics, gymnastics, swimming, football, netball, martial arts, getting involved with the various sporting clubs. We didn't have much money but Dad gave us his all. Mum worked hard as well, but where she seemed to find parenting and working exhausting chores, Dad threw himself into the role of head of the family. It took the pressure off Mum and we were happy most of the time. We were blessed that way, I think, cos many of my friends growing up didn't have a Dad like mine."

"What happened? Like, at his work with the accident?"

Heather paused again as they left the last foothill suburb behind and began to drive a winding road through the tall eucalypt forest on the side of the mountain. "He was a truck mechanic. He was helping unload some machinery off a trailer and the pallet slipped off the forklift, shattering Dad's hip and crushing his leg. He lost the leg and despite several operations his hip wasn't really right again. He couldn't do his job, and even with his workers comp payout he and Mum's relationship struggled. Dad's a proud man and felt he'd let us all down, even though it wasn't his fault. He started smoking pot because he said it helped with the pain. Shit, before the accident he was completely anti-drugs, except for the occasional durry of course."

They were high up the mountain now, yet the road continued on, the surrounding forest opening up and becoming increasingly sparse. To their right the mountainside dropped away to the city far below, and on their left were cliffs and boulder fields rising into the sky. Heather didn't say anymore, and Tim felt she was done. "Everything okay?"

Heather smiled at him while negotiating a big hairpin bend, turning one-hundred-and-eighty degrees, the roadside vegetation suddenly transitioning to low multi-stemmed eucalypts and heathy alpine shrubs among large boulders. "Yeah, I'm good. Anyway, we're almost at the top."

They parked at the lookout and climbed the jumble of boulders marking the summit. "They have a half marathon from the Casino to the summit here called the Point to Pinnacle. They reckon it's the toughest half marathon in the world, and I'd believe it. I'm thinking of doing it this year. When I was a kid I used to come running on the mountain with Dad all the time. He trained hard for his football, which he took very seriously, and so he'd run from our house in the northern suburbs, to the tracks behind the tip leading to the mountain. I remember once, when I was a teenager, we made it all the way up to the summit here and back. There was a dusting of snow, but Dad kept asking me if I wanted to keep going, and so we did. It was fucken brilliant. We were so stoked."

"He must have been very fit. I can see where you get your drive from."

"Oh he was the fittest. Mum reckons he should have been picked for the VFL draft when he was in his late teens, but he's too modest to agree. VFL was what they used to call the AFL by the way. But I believe it. He wasn't only fit but he was a genuine talent." Heather looked over her home city with a little smile on her face. "I remember this one game, and Dad was playing full-forward, right in front of the goal posts. This bloke kicked long for goal, and it was falling short with three or four other players contesting the mark, and Dad runs in, leaping up one bloke's back, taking a cracker of a mark, way up in the air above the pack. Fuck, I've never seen anything like it. I must have been about ten at the time, and to this day in my mind's eye he was totally flying through the air. Kids and even teachers at school who'd been at the game talked about it for years."

"You're very proud of him, aren't you?" Tim gave her a smile. "And he's proud of you too, I can tell."

"I love him. He's the best. When he was capable, he gave us everything and more. Plus he's the only Dad I've got. I worry about him though. I'll do a shop for him on Sunday because he puts much of his disability pension into cigarettes, pot and the pokies. Fuck I hate all those things." She spat her last words with venom.

Tim gave the moment respect before continuing. "What about ya Mum?"

"Mum's fine in her way, and I love her too, of course. She bought a shack up the coast near where she grew up and I see her from time to time, maybe once or twice a month. I think I see Uncle Pat and Auntie Joan more than Mum though. She and I don't always see eye to eye and I feel she's a bit self-absorbed. You see, Dad's a giver and I guess she became used to it. While Mum never blamed Dad for his accident, the fit and healthy man who gave his all to her no longer had anything to give. They split up when I was in me final year of school and it was a rough time for all of us. That's partially why I shot through. I could have stayed and gone to uni but was pretty angry and needed to get out of here. Mum was pissed at me for leaving, and I was pissed at her for leaving...but we're patching things up. At least we're trying to."

"That's good you and she are trying to patch things up." He paused for a moment, wondering whether to ask the next question on the tip of his tongue, and went ahead anyhow. "Your Dad still loves her, doesn't he? The photo back at his flat."

"Yeah. He loves her. Like I said, he's a stubborn bastard. One life, one wife for him. He still has their wedding photo in his bedroom. The photos are like his shrine to happier times. To all he's lost. I guess I can't talk, wanting what's never gonna be again."

"He's got you."

"Yeah, he does. But I can only do so much for him."

"So what about your other brother? Justin, did you say?"

"Yeah, Justin. He was the black sheep of the family. He began taking drugs, and ended up addicted to ice. Not long after Dad's accident Justin did a short stint in prison for petty crime, which fucked him up even more. Soon after he was released the stupid bastard wrapped a car around a tree. I was sixteen at the time and blamed Justin's behaviour and death for a whole bunch of issues, including Mum and Dad's separation a year later. Obviously it was a combination of events, but I think Justin was the straw that broke the camel's back."

"Jesus," Tim whispered.

"He was four years older than me and I used to look up to him when I was little. I think he was going through some shit and I didn't understand him back then, so I lost sympathy when he went off the rails. I was pretty narrow minded back then and now I realise I judged him too harshly."

"I saw his photo on your Dad's cabinet."

"Yeah. Mum and Dad were heart broken by Justin's death. Dad still blames himself for what happened. Justin had a sensitive gentleness about him, and wasn't into sport like Dad, or Ryan and me were. Like I said, he was going through some shit, not really knowing who he was, I think."

She breathed deep then sighed heavily before proceeding. "Maybe he was gay, or transgender, or maybe he was just a gentle but lost soul. I don't know. Mum and Dad accepted him for who he was, but I don't think he even knew who he was. Dad spent so much time with Ryan and me, since we were the sporty kids, and I think perhaps Justin felt he didn't fit in with us. When Dad found out Justin was taking drugs he told him how disappointed he was. I think it was the only time Dad showed genuine disappointment in any of us kids. I suppose it made things worse, sending Justin right off the rails, and with all the goings on, Dad's accident, and his little stint in jail made life a nightmare for him. I didn't see it at the time, but, well, you know, hindsight's a wonderful thing. Dad still beats himself up about it because he believes it's mostly his fault Justin felt left out. But it's not Dad's fault. Dad tried with him, but they were too different." She sighed again and wiped the corner of her eye. "We all have our regrets. I wish I could go back and chat with Justin to try and understand whatever it was he was going through. And just be someone for him to lean on."

They walked around kunanyi/Mount Wellington's summit in poignant silence, checking out the views from the various lookouts. Tim thought about the sadness Heather and Ryan's family suffered, and he felt deeply for them, feeling her pain deep in his heart. He wondered if these events contributed to Ryan's cannabis habit, or why Heather gave off the vibe of a real hard arse, despite her clear love of her family and heart of pure gold.

Tim and Heather stood side-by-side with hands on the lookout's timber rail, looking down to the city of Hobart spreading north and south along both shores of the wide blue expanse of the Derwent Estuary, over one vertical kilometre below them. He turned and looked at her. "You love this place, don't ya?"

A strong breeze was blowing strands of hair across her cheek and she kept brushing them aside with her hand. "Yeah, I do. I spent my mid-to-late teens wanting to escape, and once I left all I wanted was to come back." She looked at him, lips pressed together in a sad smile. "Perhaps I thought I could come back and make the past right again. But this is where my heart is and it's always been home to me, even if I was away for so long."

They stood in silence for some time, ignoring other people on the viewing platform and staring into the distance, before Tim gained the courage to ask what was on his mind. "What are you thinking? Like, what do you see for our future? Especially when I live two-thousand kilometres away."

She turned to him with an expression Tim couldn't read, and said, "I'm not quite sure what I'm thinking to be honest. All I know is how much I enjoy your company, which I do immensely. I've never even told anyone else half the personal shit I've told you. I've never even brought any previous partners back here either, partly because I never felt they'd understand. But I feel I can talk with you about anything, and you don't judge me. You listen. You don't look at me like I need fixing, but well, you look at me with, ah...I dunno, kindness. Like you care. I know I haven't been particularly smiley today, but you've made me smile more in the past week than I think I have in a long time. You make me feel...comfortable."

She paused and snickered sheepishly, perhaps with embarrassment. "I don't normally tell someone how I feel unless I know we have a future. Shit, I've been reluctant to tell people this sort of thing, even when I've thought we did have a future! But, even if you and I don't have a future, something inside me wants you to at least know how I'm feeling right now. I don't understand it and I've never been like this before, but that's simply how it is." And then she looked away, down at the river, brushing her errant wind-blown hair from her face again. "Sorry, I'm just blabbering."

"Heather, it's okay. I think you're amazing. You blow my mind. We've all got things in our lives to deal with. I can see how important your family is to you, even if they aren't what they used to be. And of course you don't need fixing because you're not broken. But I do think you have a lot of things on your emotional plate. Maybe all you need is a hug from time to time and someone to vent to. Even the strong need support. What's the old saying? No man is an island. Or woman."

She turned to him, glancing down at his chest before looking back into his eyes with a smile. "See, you asked me what I see in you. And this is it. It's more than sexual chemistry with you. I feel we connect on some whole other level. I could be wrong, but I feel you get me. Like right now, because I definitely do need a good hug." They embraced, holding each other tight. Heather rested her head on Tim's shoulder and after a couple of minutes she whispered in his ear. "But we do have sexual chemistry. You're an amazing fuck."

Tim gave an amused snort. Never before had a girl been as honest with him when they potentially had as much to lose if he rejected them as Heather was right now. With their bodies close and their arms wrapped around one another, he breathed in deep, feeling the cool mountain air permeate his lungs, then exhaled. "I have to be honest, I have some pretty intense feelings for you too. Similar reasons you've just given me. I've spent the last few days thinking about my flight home and wondering if I could delay it indefinitely."

She sounded a little surprised. "But..."

"But it's complicated, and I've wanted to enjoy being with you without over complicating things. Because I do enjoy being with you, more than I can say." Then he chuckled. "Plus, you're a pretty amazing fuck too."

She smiled as she whispered into his ear. "Well, let's leave the future for now and go home and be amazing fucks fucking together."

"I won't say no to that."

They were hardly through the door when Heather launched her attack, pinning Tim to the wall and kissing him violently. He kissed back, and she sucked out his bottom lip. They wrestled each other to the blue leather lounge, falling on it in a heap and Tim tried to pin Heather down. She managed to flip him over in some martial arts like move, and ended up pinning him down instead. With her face hovering above his, she said, "We could wrestle like this every day of your life if you like."