That Summer with Kate

"Don't we get an introduction to this guy?" Pete said, nodding towards me.

"Pete, Jan, this is my husband Adam." I held out my hand to Pete who stood there with his mouth open for several seconds before extending his hand to me.

"Wow, that was sudden, when did this happen?"

"A couple of days ago, this is sort of our honeymoon." Micha said.

"This calls for a celebration, and not one of your piddling little efforts Mitch. This is a district job, Micha is as close to a celebrity as we can muster around here."

I gave her a quizzical look. "Later, I'll explain later."

"Like hell you will. Micha here was kidnapped by her mother and involved in a plane chase that ended badly for her mother. Micha survived and was the star of the evening TV news and all of the newspapers. There's even a copy of that picture in the Officer's mess at the Richmond RAAF base." He pointed to a framed photograph that hung on the wall above the slow combustion heater. It was of a young girl, an arm in plaster, saluting the RAAF Base Commander, who was returning her salute. "That was when she announced that she was going to be a pilot in the RAAF."

"And a very good one at that." I said. "I met her at Acer when she pulled off a very tight landing in a fully laden Hercules."

"I could never have done it without the help of my wonderful man." She hugged me. We had to go into great detail of the whole incident.

"I think that you should consider a change of career, if this is what you have to do, I don't think that I'll ever rest easy while you're still flying." Julie said.

"You might as well cut off my legs as try to stop me flying, it's in my DNA."

One thing that I have found about small communities is that when a decision is made to bung on a celebration, things come together very quickly. By 4 o'clock in the afternoon there were cars arriving from all directions. The barbeque was going flat out coping with the piles of meat that had been brought over by the guests, the kitchen was a hive of activity as salads were prepared, there was a large tub filled with ice, cold bottles of wine and mixers, while a table had been set aside for the red wine. It was going to be a long night.

We surfaced, feeling decidedly second hand, at around ten the next morning, to be met by Julie scraping scraps from plates and collecting empty glasses. "I'll wash, you dry." I said to Micha as I began stacking dishes into the sink full of sudsy water. We had the mess cleared in about half an hour and Julie cranked up the coffee machine.

"Micha, can you call your father and tell him that it's safe to come inside."

Micha and I went outside where we found Mitch clearing up the detritus left by the party goers. There were a couple of large plastic garbage bin filled with bones and meat scraps, paper plates and plastic drink containers. He put the lids on both and we went inside. I don't know who had time to make cakes, but there was a platter covered with slices of cake and biscuits. I was going to have to watch my waist-line, I thought the rellies knew how to eat, but this was a whole new experience for me.

"What are your plans?" Julie asked.

"Adam is going to take me to meet his parents, and then we thought that we would go and spend a couple of days with his rellies on the farm."

"Where's that?" Mitch asked.

"It's a couple of hundred acres of mixed farm at the end of a valley near Newcastle."

"When were you thinking of leaving?"

"We thought that we'd head off as soon as we've finished here, if that's okay with you." Micha said.

"That's fine, as long as you come back here and spend some real time with us before going back up north."

"Sure thing." I said. "There is one thing that we haven't thought of."

"What is that?" Micha asked.

"How are we going to get there?"

"That's easy fixed." Mitch told us. "You can borrow the Range Rover. That way you'll have to come back."

I rang home. "Hi Mum, it's Adam, yes I'm home on leave and, yes I am coming to see you. Yes I heard about Kate and no I'm not upset. I'll tell you more when I get there."

"I presume that, because you kept saying 'I', that you are going to spring me on them." Micha said.

"Why should you have all the fun. As soon as she meets you she'll be on the phone to the rellies."

Even with the multi-lane ring roads it was till a 3 hour drive to Mum and Dad's place. Dad was at work and it was only Mum who was standing at the front door when we pulled into the driveway. "Hi Mum." I said as I opened the door for Micha. "I have a surprise for you."

"You have a new girlfriend then?"

"No Mum. I have a wife. Mum, this is Micha, Micha, Mum."

"Oh, this is a surprise. Here I was thinking that you'd be pining over Kate, and you arrive married, to a very nice girl I hasten to add."

"You don't know that, but I have to agree with you." Micha said as she gave Mum a hug.

We were ushered inside where lunch for two was waiting on the table. "You two dig in while I quickly grab some food for myself." She began to grab stuff from the fridge and cupboards and soon had enough for herself.

"So tell me, how did you two meet, I assume that Micha is in the RAAF. And how long have you been married?"

"Yes, we did meet through work. Micha is a pilot, and she flew into Acer when I was there. We hit it off straight away and I had already decided that I wanted to marry her when I got the letter from Kate informing me that I was surplus to requirements. I was surprised by the letter but, given the circumstances I could hardly say that I was sad about the whole affair. I must write her a letter wishing her well."

"I wouldn't do that if I were you. I heard this morning from the farm that things have not gone well for her. It would seem as if he had no intention of divorcing his wife. He hadn't exactly lied when he said that he and she were not living together in the family home, and that was why he lived on base. What actually happened was that she was in America on some research project and he decided that keeping a couple of rooms on base tidy was a lot easier than a whole big house. She arrived back two weeks ago and he scurried home to greet her. Kate was devastated."

"We had planned to go up to the farm tomorrow. Do you think that we should stay away until the coast is clear?"

"I'll call your aunt and see how the land lies." She went off to make the call.

Dad came home from work at around 6 o'clock and was suitably 'surprised' to meet Micha. The call to the farm wasn't the only one that Mum had made. It turned out to be a pleasant and relaxed evening and we left for the farm soon after Dad had left for work.

One thing I remember about going to the farm was the hospitality. The cousins that had left home hadn't moved far, and as soon as we had arrived, a steady stream of cousins and kids arrived, armed with food and drink. The lunch table was groaning under the weight of the abundance.

The conversation moved quickly from sounding Micha out to acceptance. We were taken on a guided tour of the property, the dams, the creek that overflowed when there was heavy rain, dumping nutrient rich topsoil across the paddocks. We sampled oranges straight from the tree, ripe juicy oranges, nothing like those available from the supermarkets and shops that had been picked before they were fully ripe to extend their shelf life, and in the process were tasteless. We went up to the creek that led to the waterfall and I promised Micha that I'd take her up there tomorrow.

We had no sooner got back to the house, in time to scrub up for dinner, than the phone rang. It was Greg Brown. "You haven't seen Kate have you?" He asked, the phone not hiding the concern in his voice.

"No, what has happened?" Auntie Sybil asked.

"She said that she was going for a walk and would be back in time for dinner, and she's not back. Normally I wouldn't be too worried, but with what has happened to her over the past couple of weeks, I'm concerned. She told us that she had bumped into Adam at Richmond and he was with a woman, and they looked more than friends. She told us that she thought that they were married, and this has really thrown her for a loop. When that bastard that she was living with dumped her and went back to his wife, she told us that she would contact Adam to see if she could patch things up between them. Seeing him with her and looking happy was the last straw."

All of this was relayed to us, and left us in shock. It was not like her to do anything silly, she had too much self-confidence for that.

"I think I know where she might have gone." I said.

"Where?" Cousin Lynn asked.

"Up to the waterfall."

"Why, what makes you think that?"

"To rekindle memories of a happier time. Look, I know that it's late and will be dark soon, but I think that we should head up there to see if she is there. Have you got any powerful torches?"

"Yes we have several."

"Okay, I'm going to get changed into something more appropriate for traipsing about in the scrub, and I'm going up there."

"I'm coming too." Micha said.

"I think you'd better stay here, the going is tough enough in daylight, but in the dark it can be dangerous."

"I don't care, if you go, I go with you."

"I've got heavy boots that will fit you." Cousin Lynn said.

Ten minutes later we set out, Cousin Geoff took on the role of tour guide, and we moved as quickly as we could.

I'll give Micha this, she didn't slow us down, not even when she noticed a leach sucking blood from her leg.

It took us the best part of an hour before we arrived at the base of the waterfall. I shined my torch into the cave. The gravity of what I saw didn't sink in for a second or two. "Kate. Wake up Kate." I said, quietly at first and then with raised voice. It made no difference, she did not move. "Shit, stupid girl." I dropped to my knees and crawled into the cave. She was still alive, but only just. An empty pill container was on the ground beside her, if she had swallowed all of these there was no hope, but we had to try.

"Can you call the house and request help. Tell them that she has taken an overdose of a codeine based pain killer. I can't be sure how many pills she has taken but the container is empty. We need information from the Poisons Information Centre as to the best first aid treatment. I'm going to see if I can make her sick and hopefully get any residual medication out of her stomach. We will try CPR for as long as necessary. The gully is too narrow for a chopper, even in daylight, so it will have to be on foot."

"I'll tell them to come up the shelf to just above us and they can winch a stretcher up the side of the gully. Dad can guide them." Geoff went out, and walked around until he managed to get a signal. He spoke quickly to them and told us that the treatment that we had started was the best that we could do under the circumstances. "It will take the ambulance at least half an hour to get out to the farm, and possibly another half hour to drive up the shelf. We're in for a long night." He told us as he came back to the cave.

"What made you think that she'd come to here?" Micha asked me.

"In some ways Kate and I think alike. If I found my world crashing down around my head, I think that I would go to a place where I had found some happiness. I would like to think that during that first summer with Kate, that we had both found happiness. For whatever reason that happiness was not to last, and fortunately for me I have found a deeper and more lasting love while, unfortunately Kate has not.

It was an hour and a half later when we got a call from above and a rope came snaking down to us. We were told to walk out from the base of the gully so the stretcher would have a clear path down the rope. Once it was on the ground the stretcher slid down to us, followed by a paramedic. Kate by this time was showing signs of coming around. She was quickly checked over and the decision was made to evacuate her as quickly as possible. She was strapped securely into the stretcher, covered with one of those space blankets and the long haul began.

It took some fifteen minutes, accompanied by some slipping and swearing from the paramedic, before she was hauled onto the shelf and loaded into the ambulance for the trip down the fire trail and off to hospital. It was only after Kate had been taken away, and we were no longer otherwise occupied, that Micha noticed a backpack at the rear of the cave.

Shining a torch into it we found some food and a bottle of water, another pill container with its seal intact, and a note. It wasn't a suicide note as such, but it was a long and rambling message of despair, of having;

'I Fucked up my life and in the process lost the one person who truly understood me. Forgive me Adam, I was blinded by his charm. When I saw you with that woman and her name tag had the same name as yours, I admit that I was hurt and that I lost it. All that I could think of was to get away from my hurt. It wasn't only you that had hurt me, it was him, and to think that I am pregnant to him. I came here with the hope of finding happiness, because this was where I had found my love and my future with you. It isn't your fault that I threw it away, and I can see now that I will never get that back. There is nothing left for me, I can't go back to Richmond to see that bastard's smiling face, knowing that he has taken advantage of me, only to toss me aside when his wife came back. How could I have been so stupid? How could I have thrown my happiness with you away, how could I have hurt you? Forgive me, please, forgive my stupidity, forgive my selfishness in taking another life with me. I cannot face my family with my shame.'

"This isn't a suicide note as much as a cry for help." Micha said. "She obviously didn't intend to end it all, otherwise she would have taken all of the pills. She knew that you would twig to it that she would come up here, she intended for you to find her, and take pity on her." Micha said as she finished reading the note.

"What can I do? Right now I, for one, don't want to spend the night up here. I think that we should head back down so that we can get a good night's sleep."

Geoff led the way out of the bush and we arrived back at the farmhouse to find it still a hive of activity. The Browns were there along with the local police sergeant wanting to get information on what had happened. I introduced Micha to the Browns. "So that is what she was raving on about." Greg said. "She said something about seeing you at Richmond, and you were very friendly with a couple and a woman in uniform who just happened to have the same name as yours on her tag. She assumed, correctly as it turns out, that you were married. She had told us that she had broken it off with you, and was going to marry this Will bloke. We told her that she was being stupid, but she would have none of that. Then his wife came back and he dumped her. She was hoping that, if she apologised to you, that you would take her back. She is very fragile emotionally at this time. She is officially AWOL but we have explained the situation to her CO, and he has promised to see to it that she is granted leave. He has also promised to chat to her pilot friend and let him know the trauma that he has caused."

"Half of me thinks that I should go and see her when she is well enough, while the other half thinks it is not a good idea. But someone needs to go and see her to reassure her that her life isn't fucked up, that there is hope for the future."

Geoff had been looking thoughtful ever since we got back. "I'll go and see her. We've been pretty good friends for yonks and I think I know her well enough to be able to take her mind off things for the time being." For some reason I thought that there was more to this than met the eye.

Things calmed down eventually and we all managed to get some sleep.

The news from the hospital was encouraging. Kate was out of danger and, while not making much sense, was at least talking. A Psychologist had been in to see her and said that she was not yet ready to leave hospital, and that her release date would depend on how quickly her moods stabilised. She was not yet ready to face visitors and the hospital would advise when she was well enough.

Micha and I said our good-byes and drove back to her place, pausing briefly at home to fill Mum in on the drama. She advised that it would not be a good idea for me to see Kate just yet.

Life with Micha's family was in stark contrast to what we had just gone through. Nothing seemed to faze them, although the same couldn't be said for her early life. Mitch and Julie related the drama in such a matter of fact tone that I could be forgiven for thinking it was an everyday occurrence, not the traumatic experience that it was. When they told how, following the crash that killed her mother, she climbed, with a broken arm that must have really hurt, from the wreckage and signalled to Mitch, circling above, that she was okay. I now understood why Micha was so calm on that landing approach at Acer, the influence of her parents, and her flight training prepared her for coping with emergencies.

"I have been giving some thought to my future." I told them over lunch. I had their attention. "I think that I should get my pilots licence, I quite enjoy life at the front of planes rather than straining to see nothing but, usually wings, out of those ridiculously small windows."

"There's more to flying that looking out of windows you know." Micha said." There are pre-flight checks, mid flight checks and post flight checks. If you want a commercial licence there's time on a simulator that has pretty pictures on screens in front of you that bear only a passing resemblance to reality."

"I know all of that, but I thought that if I had my licence we could fly together."

"You'd have no problem with me being the boss and telling you what to do?"

"I would bow to your superior knowledge and experience."

"Are you expecting the RAAF to provide the training?"

"No, but with a pilot in the family I figured that I'd get mate's rates on my training flights."

"We have two pilots in the family." Mitch said. "Would you like to go up this afternoon for a test flight? Micha can take you up and let you take the controls for a while to see if you have the feel for flying."

"I'd love that."

"That's settled then. In the mean time we need to prepare her for the flight. Come on, Micha can do the walk around and you can do what you'd normally do, check systems and vital fluids."

We walked out to the hangar, and while Micha walked around checking the control surfaces and lights and stuff, I checked the engine fluids and then climbed into the cockpit and sat at the control, moving them around to make sure that they were free and not catching. Micha climbed in and we started the engines and checked that all the instruments were operational and that the warning lights were working. She shut the engines down and we climbed out. "She seems sweet, there was no sign of any leaks around the engines, they started easily and ran smoothly, the controls are as they should be. I'd say that this is a very well maintained aircraft. In the short time that I've known you and your father, I'd expect nothing less than that."

The test flight went perfectly. Micha was at the controls until we had reached our operational ceiling, and then she showed me what the various controls did, how to do a rudder turn, and then a banked turn. As we came in to land she explained the flap settings for landing.

"Well. Will he make a pilot or not?" Mitch asked as we stopped outside the hangar.

"He has the touch. I explained what did what and he picked it up straight away. I can see that once he gets started there'll be no keeping him on the ground."