Author’s note: If you need a refresher on what’s happening in this universe, a short description of each previous story may be found on the Reminder Page. However, this particular story only deals with Mart and Daphne.

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January, 1998

Mart dropped onto the bench that stood on the verandah right outside his front door and started to pull on his shoes. The temperature overnight had stayed rather high, as had the humidity, and he was feeling it. In spite of being just past six in the morning, the day was beginning to heat up.

Just over a month before, he and Daphne had left the city for the town in which she’d grown up. For the moment, she was living in the family home, while he shared this ramshackle house with three other men. Two of them were sky-diving instructors; the third did something connected to the operation of a nearby dam. Mart had nothing in common with any of them.

He walked down the stairs and across the grass to the place he had parked his car. Unlocking it with the key, he got in and wound down both the front windows. The handle of the passenger side door wobbled a little as he turned it. That done, he started the engine and bumped across the grass to the road.

The radio in the old car had given up long ago, but it had a cassette player that still worked. As he drove, he pushed a tape in and tapped his fingers on the steering wheel in time with the beat. He had an hour’s drive ahead of him, then five hours of work, followed by an hour’s return journey.

“And then,” he told himself, “I get to spent the afternoon with Daphne.”

That thought sustained him through it all.

In the early afternoon, as he drove along the highway towards Esk, Mart glanced now and then at the towering thunderclouds that were forming. The ones he could see were destined to hit someone else, but where a few storms brewed, there would be others as well. He groaned inwardly at the thought of wind, rain, thunder and lightning outside, while he stayed within the confines of a creaky, old house. His three housemates liked to sit out on the verandah in the cool while a storm raged, but Mart never felt safe there.

Rolling into town, he easily found a parking space on the main strip and walked the short distance to one of the antique shops. It belonged to a friend of Daphne’s family, who was in the middle of an unexpected health crisis. Daphne had been asked to mind the place in the interim and had jumped at the chance.

He stepped through the open door into a room cooled by a huge, old pedestal fan. He could hear the hum of another one in the next room, too. This front room was filled with enormous, heavy pieces. Daphne, if he knew anything about her, would more likely be with the cabinets of collectables located through the doorway.

“Daphne?” he called, as he stepped through into the other room. She was nowhere in sight. “Are you here?”

A hidden door, leading to the work area at the back, opened. Daphne darted through it.

“You’re finally back,” she teased, between kisses. “I’ve missed you.”

“It’s been such a long time since I last saw you,” he returned. “All of fourteen hours, I’d say.”

“Come on through.” She nodded to the back room. “I haven’t had a customer in two hours and I don’t see why any should want to come now. It’s stinking hot outside.”

“Isn’t it worse in there?” he wondered, feeling apprehensive.

“Marginally. But I’ve got a pile of new stuff to go through and I want your help with it.”

“New old stuff?”

She rolled her eyes. “Newly arrived here. And don’t be a pedant; it’s irritating.”

“Yes, ma’am.”

She growled. “And don’t call me that. Just get in here.”

He smiled and followed her. As usual, the back room was hot, dusty and somewhat cluttered. A work space at one side provided room to clean and repair furniture. It was kept meticulously neat. The other side was a jumble of items not good enough to sell, or awaiting repair, or held back for some other reason.

Daphne gestured to an old desk. “You can start on that. It needs its drawers cleaned out. Rubbish in the bin. Things you don’t know what to do with in this basket. Anything good you find, show me right away. Understand?”

“Yes, ma’am.”

“You’re treading on thin ice,” she answered, with another growl.

He laughed. “You don’t understand the first thing about ice.”

“Yes, I do.” She grinned. “It comes from the freezer.”

Not dignifying that remark with a reply, he pulled open the first drawer and let out an involuntary groan.

“Yes, I know.” She shrugged. “But it’s got to be done sometime and I need to stay in the shop in case someone decides to go shopping for antiques at the hottest part of the day in a heatwave.”

Mart sighed and got down to work.

The first drawer yielded nothing of much interest and most of it he threw out. The second held very little and was quickly finished. As he bent to pull out the third drawer, something within the frame of the desk caught his eye. He reached in and pulled out a yellowed newspaper clipping.

“Hey, look at this.” He smoothed it out against his thigh. “It says something about Eskdale Station. Is that somewhere near here?”

“Station? Oh, that would be a farm. A long time back. Yes, Eskdale is where the Wilsons live,” she answered, mentioning some people he knew slightly. “You remember we visited them? Over that way.”

He nodded understanding. “It’s about the sudden death of a man from being struck by lightning. Hey! I knew it wasn’t safe to sit on the verandah during a storm.”

Daphne rolled her eyes. “Of course it is. You’re just being a baby.”

“This guy died.” He began to read to her. “It says, ‘The sudden death of Patrick Hickey, from lightning, at Eskdale Station, on Thursday last, cast a gloom over the district as well as the station, and the sad news spread rapidly. The young man was well known as being quiet, steady, a good son to his mother, and was well liked by his mates on the station.’”

“I don’t see the problem,” she interrupted. “You’re not quiet, and if we asked your mother, she’d say you were very disappointing for moving so far away. And I don’t see what this has to do with verandahs.”

“I’m getting to that.” He cleared his throat. “As I was saying, ‘When the storm was raging, young Hickey and the mail-boy, Billy (aboriginal), were on the verandah–’”

“Does it really say that?”

He pointed to the place. “Sure. So, they were on the verandah, ‘one on each side of the door, Hickey sitting on a block, with his arms folded. The flash of lightning, striking his head, passed across his face, down his right side and leg, and, from the marks, appeared to have gone round his right foot, tearing his boot to pieces. Death must have been instantaneous. There were several articles in the hut struck, but whether before or after the deceased was struck cannot be told. The mail boy Billy was stunned and stupefied for some time.’ And then it goes on about the enquiry, and the funeral being at Esk cemetery.”

Daphne read through the article for herself, then cried out in triumph. “I knew there was something. It says they were in a hut, not a house.”

“What does that matter?” he cried. “This dude is still dead.”

She turned the clipping over and examined the back. “There’s nothing here to say when this happened – no date on it, or name of the paper. It looks old, though. He’d be dead by now, anyway, I’d guess.”

“That’s beside the point.”

She shook her head at him. “You’re really upset about this.”

“Why shouldn’t I be?” he demanded. “I have to live in a house with a metal roof, in a climate that throws thunderstorms at it every single day.”

“Oh, now you’re exaggerating.” She counted on her fingers. “We’ve only had maybe four thunderstorms this season. And most of the year, we don’t have any.”

“We’ve had five in the last two weeks!”

“Four of those were so distant we didn’t get any really loud strikes.”

He broke off his argument as thunder grumbled in the distance.

“It’s a long way away,” she told him, in a more soothing voice. “And on a day like today, you can’t really expect anything else. It’s been humid enough that you could almost swim in it.”

He was going to say something, but then heard voices from outside, indicating some customers. Daphne threw him a rather pitying look, then went out to talk to them. Mart sat back and brooded.

As he heard Daphne laugh at something one of the customers had said, however, his attitude began to change. What, exactly, was he upset about, anyway?

Ten minutes later, when Daphne returned, she found him contemplating the view out the window with a thoughtful expression.

“Feeling better?” she asked.

He nodded. “I’ve come to some conclusions.”

“And?”

He turned to her. “One: I got what I wanted, in that we’re no longer living in the inner suburbs, but are out in the country again.”

“True.” She grinned. “You’d made that pretty clear.”

“I did,” he admitted. “Two: It’s not your fault that I’m living in a house that’s a disaster waiting to happen.”

“It’s not that bad.” As he opened his mouth to disagree, she added, “But I don’t want to argue about it. Move, if that’s what you want. We can help you find something else.”

He nodded. “Three: Life is short. I don’t have time to mess around doing stuff that I hate.”

“Ah.” She sank down onto a chair. “So, this is where you’re going. I kind of wondered.”

She looked so downcast that he took her hand, but she pulled it away.

“If you’re going home, just go, okay? Don’t drag it out.”

Mart’s jaw dropped. “No! That’s not what I meant.”

“Then what do you mean?”

He thought for a moment, carefully wording his response. “I hate commuting back to Brisbane several days a week. I hate the time it wastes and the mental strain. I hate the feeling of being half still there and half here. And, most of all, I think I hate thunderstorms.”

She giggled, as the tension between them suddenly eased. “I can’t do anything about the last item there, but you do know they’ll stop in a few weeks, don’t you?”

“Yes.” He sighed. “And it’s my own fault for not putting in more effort toward finding local work, other than odd jobs here and there. And for agreeing to live in that tumble-down shack with three people I don’t like.”

“So, you have a plan of action?”

He nodded. “Part of one. Look for a new job. Look for a different place to live. And… well, I think I need to seriously consider my other options. I need a place to belong.”

Understanding began to dawn on her face. “We need to talk about the future.”

“Yeah, we do.” His voice was soft. “But not here and now.”

A few more customers trickled through as the afternoon progressed, but only one actually bought anything. The distant grumbling of thunder grew louder and the sky darkened as closing time approached.

“Help me bring in the things from the footpath,” Daphne urged, about ten minutes before she would normally do that. “It’s about to pour.”

He heaved himself out of his chair and followed her outside. The fresh air felt cool and there was a smell of rain. Together, they moved the wares inside and Daphne locked up.

“Come home with me,” she suggested, as they walked towards their cars. “If you’re lucky, my mother will take pity and feed you. And you know our house is safe in storms.”

He grunted. “Your house is built of the same materials, is a similar age and at a similar elevation. The only difference is the amount of maintenance that’s been done, over the years.”

“Well, I’ve never heard of anyone being killed by lightning on a verandah. You’re more likely to die by a gum tree dropping a huge branch on your head.”

“Is now the time to note that your yard is populated with several enormous eucalyptus trees?” He shook his head. “It’ s not getting any better.”

“Just come, okay? Stop being so difficult.”

He nodded and crossed the highway to the place where he’d parked. A large raindrop splattered into the middle of the windscreen as he pulled out. By the time he was halfway there, the rain was coming down so hard that he could barely see Daphne’s tail-lights right ahead of him. He followed her into the yard, up the long drive and parked as close to the house as he could. Even so, he was soaked through by the time he’d run up the verandah stairs. The door to the house was closed, suggesting that no one else was home.

“That feels so good!” his girlfriend exclaimed, as she walked up behind him at a slower pace. “Let’s sit on the verandah and watch the storm.”

Mart scowled. “Did you listen to anything I’ve said, this afternoon?”

“Did you listen to anything I said?” She chose a spot and sat down on the floor, her back against the wall of the house. “Sit next to me. If we go out by lightning strike, we’ll go out together. Anyway, I have the key and I’m not opening up.”

As he got down next to her, he muttered, “Knowing my luck, you’d die and I’d just be terribly injured.”

“You’re being very morbid this afternoon.”

He sighed, then shuddered as thunder crashed. “That was a close one.”

“Not really. Eight seconds; I counted.”

“How do you define close, then?” He frowned. “Five seconds?”

“Two.” She pointed. “Look at that one. Six seconds. That must have been a big strike to be so loud, so far away.”

Gusts of wind swirled around, spraying them with droplets of water and agitating the branches of the trees. Somewhere close by, a cracking sound and a groan signalled a big branch dropping.

“We’ll have some clean-up to do when this is over,” she noted, relaxing against his side. “But this is pretty good, otherwise.”

“Good?” He stared at her. “How do you define this as good?”

She began to trace patterns on his thigh, which made it hard to concentrate on her words. “Well, it’s so much cooler. And it’s late enough in the day that it won’t have time to get really hot again. The storm isn’t too bad here – it’s further down the valley – and it looks like it’s easing off.”

“One of your trees sounds like it just broke in half,” he protested.

She waved that notion away. “Gum trees are known for dropping big branches. And they don’t need a storm to do it, either. If someone took the branch away, you probably wouldn’t be able to tell which tree it came from, unless you looked closely.”

“I don’t think I’ll ever completely understand this place,” he complained, grabbing her hand and holding it hard. “But you know, that storm wasn’t anywhere near as bad with you beside me than it would have been at home alone.”

She rolled her eyes. “That’s because you sit in a closed room with the curtains drawn and hide under the covers. You can’t even see the flashes before the thunder comes.”

“I do not hide under the covers!”

Daphne laughed. “The rest is true, though.”

The rain was noticeably lighter, now. A car turned into the drive, then passed out of view behind a bushy shrub.

“That’s Mum,” Daphne noted, nodding in that direction. “She’ll ask me why I haven’t opened all the windows. Just wait.”

A few minutes later, the door was opened from within.

“Hello, you two,” Mrs. Matthews greeted. “Staying for dinner, Mart?”

“Yes,” Daphne answered for him, before he could say a word. “How was your day?”

“Fine. How was yours?”

“Hot. Sticky. Quiet. No one wanted to shop for antiques today.”

“Speaking of heat,” her mother replied, “you didn’t happen to think of opening up the house to let the hot air out?”

Daphne shot Mart a triumphant look. “Didn’t get around to it, yet.”

“Come and help open everything up now,” her mother directed.

She scrambled to her feet, but Mart stayed where he was, knowing that he would only be in the way. It did not take long to open the doors and windows onto the verandah. More likely, a mother-daughter discussion was about to take place.

He watched as the rain dwindled away. The clouds began to break up and late-afternoon sun shone down in patches. When the rain stopped altogether, he got up and went for a walk, to see if he could find the fallen branch.

Skirting around the edge of the leaf-strewn lawn, he passed the house and the shed they used as a garage. One or two small branches lay on the ground, but none of them big enough to have made the noise they had heard. Beyond that, the grass was not mown, but only kept down by the grazing of animals, such as the wild kangaroos that lived in the vicinity. In this area he found the broken branch.

He made his way over to it, looking up every now and again at the tree that had dropped it. In one place, he could see the reddish wood of a new scar. If he looked carefully, he could see other places that the old tree had dropped branches before, where the wood had turned a silvery grey. The wide end of the branch at his feet was thicker than his thigh. It seemed enormously long, but the force of gravity had laid most of the upper branches and leaves almost flat.

“See? It’s not half a tree,” Daphne pointed out from behind him, making him jump. “And it wasn’t too close to the house. We won’t have to do much to this – just drag it out of the way.”

He eyed it dubiously. “It looks rather heavy.”

“And you supposedly grew up on a farm,” she teased. “We’ll use a tractor, silly.”

Mart muttered something about not having a tractor at home and sank down onto the newly-fallen branch.

“Mum says tea won’t be ready for an hour. I offered to help her, but she sent me out here.”

By ‘tea’ Mart knew by now that she meant the evening meal. He patted the branch next to him and she gingerly settled on it. They sat in silence for several minutes, each lost in their own thought, but their fingers intertwined and their thighs touching.

“I don’t want to rush things,” he admitted, at last. “If you’re not ready to talk about the future, then I’m not going to press the issue.”

“Not ready?” she demanded. “Why would I not be ready? Mart, you’ve been here for a year and a half and we did the long-distance thing for a year before that. It’s time to talk about the future.”

“I guess I thought… well, that you’re not even twenty-one, yet.”

“But I will be in three months. And what does that have to do with anything? There’s no significance to being twenty-one. It’s just another number.”

“Where I come from, it’s the drinking age,” he pointed out, smiling.

“Where I come from,” she countered, “that’s eighteen.”

He shrugged. “I think what I’m trying to say is that when I was not-quite-twenty-one, I didn’t really know where I was going, what I was doing, or what I wanted. In fact, I was pretty lost. Now that I come to think of it, though, I’d had a pretty traumatic experience the year before, not to mention some big mistakes I’d made leading up to that, which could be considered contributory to that state. So, to make a long story short, maybe I was projecting my memories of being your age onto you.”

“I know what I want,” she whispered. “I just don’t know if you want it, too.”

“I want to be with you, always.” He squeezed her hand. “Wherever you want to live, I want to live there, too.”

She smiled. “Even if I decide to move to, say, Tokyo?”

He grimaced. “If you must.”

“Or New Delhi?”

“Is that really an option?”

“Probably not. Rio?”

“Is this a list of places you’d like to live, or a list of places you think I’d hate?”

She sought inspiration from the heavens. “Okay, so I was kind of testing, there. But what if I said I wanted six kids?”

“I like kids,” he answered. “Six is more than I thought, but I’m flexible.”

“What if I don’t want any?”

“That’s not a deal-breaker, either.”

“What if I say I’m not ever living in America, because Americans talk funny and have strange ideas, like that sandwich you keep making and trying to make me eat?”

“This is like your brother and the crocodile analogy all over again,” he grumbled.

“Excuse me?”

“Never mind.” He kissed her. “I just have to learn not to be sensitive about people making fun of my accent, my eating habits and my nationality.”

“You’d better.” She kissed him back. “I don’t see it changing any time soon.”

“No, I don’t, either.” He sighed. “And I don’t see you leaving here, which means that I have to stay.”

“If the government lets you,” she clarified.

“Yes. That’s a big if. But I’ve been working on meeting the requirements for permanent residency. I’m hopeful that it will work out.”

She launched a sudden hug, almost knocking him off the branch. “Have you? That’s great!”

He enjoyed her embrace for a minute, then asked the question that burned within him.

“But what if it doesn’t? Would you go anywhere?”

She loosened her grip on him and gazed off into the distance. “If I had to, I would. But there are places that I think I’d find hard to live in.”

“I hope it doesn’t come to that.” He looked up at the gently swaying branches of the old gum tree. “I hope I’d never push you into a situation where you had to choose between making me happy and being happy yourself.”

“I’m sure you wouldn’t.”

He shrugged, less sure in his own value. “Can we leave this discussion for another time? I think we both need some time to think this through.”

She raised an eyebrow. “No, I’m pretty sure of my position on all this.”

“Yes, but how can I put this? We’re sitting on a fallen tree branch at the edge of the patch of scrub behind your parent’s house, both wearing slightly damp and totally dishevelled clothes. It’s not exactly the height of romance.”

“Full points for correct use of the term ‘scrub’,” she teased, then turned more serious. “Okay. I understand. But I’ll be looking out for the whole down on one knee thing at a suitably romantic moment in the near future, understand?”

“With two dozen red roses and a pile of chocolate boxes, with the chocolates still inside,” he promised.

She shook her head. “No. Save the money. You’re going to need it. We’re going to need it.”

“Probably,” he answered.

A week and a half later, Mart invited Daphne on a picnic. He picked her up on the bright and sunny Monday morning – when the antique shop was closed – and they headed south along the highway.

“Where are we going?” she wondered, aloud.

Mart made a non-committal sound. “You’ll see when we get there.”

“Seriously? I’m supposed to just wait and see?”

He nodded. “Yeah, that’s what I was thinking.”

She sat, frowning for some time, then conceded some form of defeat and joined in the conversation that Mart kept trying to start.

“So, not anywhere on the shore of the dam,” she noted, when they had crossed over the dam wall and gone past the last of the turn-offs in that direction. “But will you turn left or right when we get to the highway?”

“Who says we’re going that far?” he asked.

Daphne rolled her eyes. “Mart, if you’re intending to take me to Lovers Lane, you can think again.”

He declined to answer, but soon the locality in question passed by on their right.

“I don’t understand what you’re doing,” she complained, frowning deeper still.

“You’ll see.”

At the intersection with another highway, he turned to the left, which headed them towards Brisbane.

“Now I know you’re crazy,” she laughed. “You’re taking me to your work, aren’t you?”

He shook his head. “No. I’m not working today. And while it’s true that this is the first part of my commute, I don’t think we should end up in the same area.”

“Unless you get lost.”

He assumed a haughty air. “I do not get lost!”

“Yeah, that’s what you say, but I know better.”

Later, she looked at him in confusion as he made another connection. “You do know where you’re going, don’t you?”

“Yes, I know where I’m going. I looked it up, specially.”

“Because this going to take us into an even busier part of the inner city than where you condescended to live. Unless…”

“Hmm?”

“You’re not taking me to the look-out, are you.” It wasn’t a question. “The gardens?”

“You’ll see,” he repeated.

“Well, I’m sure that’s where we’re going now,” she answered. “So, what’s for lunch?”

“Who says I’ve arranged lunch?”

She laughed. “I don’t need anyone to tell me that. I know that you like food. You wouldn’t leave it to chance.”

He shrugged, smiling.

They crossed the river, passing through suburban areas and sometimes patches of bushland. At a large roundabout, Mart turned off to the left. A short distance later, he entered the Botanic Gardens. Being a weekday, they were open to traffic and he slowed down as he manoeuvred through the gates and onto the loop road.

Daphne sighed in satisfaction. “It is nice here.”

Mart nodded. The road curved to the right and began to climb the hill. They passed the area where he used to go and sit. At the top of the hill, he turned left but without entering the parking area.

“Where are you taking me?” she asked, once more. “I kind of thought the conifer garden, or the look-out…”

“I already said, not the look-out.”

She rolled her eyes. “We were talking about the proper look-out at the top of the mountain then, not that little one.”

“No look-outs. And we both know it’s not really a mountain; it’s just a really big hill.” The end of the road was approaching and he parked the car in an otherwise empty lot. “Come on. Let’s go for a walk.”

They crossed the road hand in hand and walked down the grassy slope towards the lagoon. A path followed its banks and they wandered along it, looking at the water lilies and the occasional duck. The plantings in this section were newer and so the beds were less full than those further down the hill.

After some time, they came to a point that satisfied Mart and they stopped. Overhead, the dense foliage of one of the larger trees gave welcome shade. To one side, the low plants framed the view of the lagoon. No one else was in sight.

He got down on one knee.

Daphne smiled. “You don’t really have to… .”

“Yes, I’m pretty sure I do.” He took her hand. “Daphne, my beloved, my everything, would you do me the honour of becoming my wife?”

She pulled him to his feet and kissed him soundly. “Yes!”

Grinning broadly, Mart spun her in a circle and then kissed her until they were both dizzy. In that moment he knew that whatever storms may come, they would face them together. And he was satisfied.

The End