Chapter 26 Kim
Chapter Twenty-Six
Kim
“We’ve got a terrific site.” Kim turns to Danika and spreads her arms, encompassing their riverside campsite as if she’d conjured it herself.
The river trickles and tumbles over rocks, narrows to a clear, deep pool that Kim knows is perfect for swimming, and then spreads silent runnels in the channel. There’s short grass for the tents, a tree for shade, and they’re near to the toilets and the camp kitchen.
The caravan park isn’t one of the large, commercial ones with a swimming pool, water slide, and hundreds of white caravans jammed into too-small spaces.
It’s quiet, spread out, and attracts mainly retirees and families.
Kim has loved it since she first came here with Chris, although Johanna Beach will always be her favourite.
“It’s perfect!” Danika turns slowly. “Can you fish in the river?”
“You get a permit from the park office, and then yes. But we’ve never tried. You can hire kayaks or bicycles if you want, for exploring. And the pizza in town is great!”
Cami bounces up and throws her arms around Danika’s waist. “This is awesome! Bella and I want to put our tent there.” She points to a place close to the river, where a flattened patch shows it’s a popular place to pitch a tent.
“Then we can hear the river. Bella says she’s seen a platypus here before. We want to sit quietly and look.”
“Quietly?” Danika ruffles Cami’s hair. “That will be the day.”
Cami springs away from Danika and flings herself onto Kim, hugging her around the waist too. She’s lost a front tooth since Kim last saw her, and her gap-mouth is endearing.
“Thank you for bringing us here, Kim. I love it!” Then she’s gone, racing back to where Bella is already picking up fallen sticks to clear the site for their tent.
“Guess that’s them sorted.” Kim grins at Danika and allows herself a flirtatious upward tilt of her eyes. “Now where shall we put our tent?”
Yes. Their tent. Because the girls assumed, and Kim is assuming, that she and Danika will again share a tent. And while Kim is not assuming what will happen in that tent, she is hoping.
Danika’s gaze meets Kim’s for a second before it shifts sideways and she studies their campsite.
She’s uncomfortable, Kim realises. Or maybe she doesn’t want to be too obvious in front of the girls.
“Maybe there?” She points to a second flattened patch on the riverbank. “We’ll get to hear the river, and it’s close to the girls.”
And the rippling river will help drown out their conversation…
or other noises. Heat slides down Kim’s spine.
Maybe Danika isn’t uncomfortable after all.
Maybe she’s just assessing. Because it would have been too easy to suggest pitching their tent further from the river, still close to the girls, but where the river noise wouldn’t muffle their conversation.
“I’d rather have had our tent between the girls and the river, in case they get up in the night,” Danika says, “But they’ve decided now, so this is the next best thing.”
Right. So Danika’s choice isn’t about privacy; it’s about safety for the kids beside the river. Of course.
“They’ll be fine,” she says. “Cami woke us at Johanna when she wanted the toilet in the night. We’ll impress upon them they must do the same here.”
The tents are soon pitched, sleeping mats and bags arranged.
Bella is clamouring to go explore the campground, but Kim grins at her.
“Sure, you can do that…but we can have a campfire here. We can cook our dinner on the fire and make damper. We bought wood”—she indicates the two bags of firewood they purchased from a roadside stall on the way—“but we need kindling. Before you go off exploring, you need to collect small twigs and dry leaves to start the fire.”
“Yay!” Cami says. “I’ve never had a campfire.”
“Don’t break anything off a tree or bush,” Danika says. “Fallen twigs and small branches only.”
The girls run off.
Danika watches them go. “This is magical for Cami. A campfire! I’ll never hear the end of it. She’ll be wanting to cook dinner on a fire in the backyard after this, I’m sure of it.”
“Magical for us, too, I hope.” Kim can’t stop staring at Danika. How she stands watching their daughters, her chestnut hair glowing in the slanting late-afternoon sun, her hands pushed into the pockets of her cotton pants. Her slender body is taut for a second before it relaxes.
“I don’t think that pizza place in town will have a visit from us this weekend.” She smiles at Kim, but there’s a woodenness about it.
She hasn’t answered Kim’s question either. Kim turns away and gets the camp chairs from the boot, then the table, and the box containing the pots and pans.
Danika stands for a moment, then opens the chairs and sets up the table. She peeks into the box of groceries Kim has brought. “You weren’t joking about the damper, I see.” She holds up a bag of self-raising flour, and her smile is back to her relaxed normal.
“It’s not just Bella’s favourite thing; it’s mine, too. There’s nothing like half-burned, half-raw dough cooked on a campfire and then filled with honey.”
“You make it sound so appealing. How can I resist!”
But to Kim’s ears, it already sounds as if Danika is resisting, and it’s not the damper she’s talking about.
Danika was right, and the kids scorn the idea of pizza, insisting that they will cook sausages and potatoes on the campfire. Dusk falls, and the campfire is a banked heap of embers and flickering small flames. Perfect for staring into while cradling a glass of wine. Perfect for cooking.
Foil-wrapped potatoes nestle in the embers. Kim has set up a griddle, and the girls are busy turning sausages over the fire. So far, only two have been lost to the flames.
Danika opens the store-bought tub of coleslaw, grated cheese, buttered rolls, and puts together a salad. There’s tomato and barbecue sauces, mustard, hot chilli sauce, and chutney.
“Wine.” She comes up to Kim and presses a glass of red into her hand. “I think we’ve earned it.” She sinks into the chair next to Kim.
Kim taps her glass to Danika’s. “We have. But the hard work is done now. We just have to wait for our chefs to present us with a gourmet meal of burned sausages.”
“Lucky we have plenty of salad.” Danika grins as a shout from Bella tells them that another sausage has met a fiery end.
“Lucky we bought double the amount of sausages we need.” Kim focuses on Danika, who’s leaning forward, staring at the flames as if they can foretell the future. Maybe they can. Probably better than Suze’s tarot cards, anyway.
“Are you okay?” She touches Danika’s forearm with her free hand.
“You seem…I don’t know…a little tense.” She sucks a breath.
There’s one obvious reason Danika could be tense.
“If you’re worried about sharing a tent with me, please don’t be.
I’ll keep on my side of the tent. I’ll be as well-behaved as a nun at a prayer meeting. ”
Danika’s mouth twitches up in a smile, one that spreads to the fine skin at the corner of her eyes.
“That’s not much of a recommendation. I went to Catholic school, and Sister Lucia was caught reading a spicy romance inside her prayer book.
One of those books with a bare-chested man with flowing golden locks on the cover. ”
“What happened?” Danika is back to relaxed, and Kim is happy to encourage that.
“Nothing.” Danika turns her head to look at Kim.
“It was only one row of girls who could see the cover. She’d hidden it pretty well.
And we all agreed that if Sister Lucia wanted to read that, well, why shouldn’t she?
To teenage girls, it seemed she had the dullest of lives, so if that made her happy, so be it. ”
“Very mature of you. Was she ever caught?”
“Not that I knew. I transferred to the local high school soon after, which was fine.” She takes a breath. “I’m sorry if you thought I was worried about sharing a tent with you. I didn’t realise my unease was so obvious.”
Kim closes her eyes. She’d thought they were becoming closer, in ways that went beyond friendship, but it seems she was mistaken.
“It’s not what you think,” Danika continues. “I’m just trying to get my head around…something. Not a problem exactly, but something I need to accept and act on. But I’m not there yet.”
So it wasn’t her. Although Danika’s words didn’t rule it out. “Is it anything I can help with?” She pitches her voice low so the girls won’t overhear, although their giggles as they turn sausages make it unlikely they are listening.
“Not really. Not yet, anyway.” Danika continues to stare at the flames as if she’ll find the answer to her problem there.
Bella’s laugh and Cami’s snort come from their left. The girls appear proudly bearing two plates laden with burned sausages and foil-wrapped potatoes.
“We cooked them all,” Bella says.
“Only dropped four,” Cami adds.
“And ate one.” Bella side-eyes her sister, and they both giggle.
“Well, you had to make sure they’re properly cooked, didn’t you?” Kim rises and takes the tilting plate from Bella before dinner is totally lost. “Go wash your hands, and when you come back, it’s time to eat.”
Cami and Bella skip off to the amenities block, leaving Kim to lock eyes with Danika. She can’t help wishing their conversation hadn’t been cut short.
She walks to the table and adds the sausages to the food already there.
“Dani—” She frowns. “Does anyone call you Dani?”
“Only Mum. No one else would get away with it.”
“Nika?”
“Also, no.”
“Dan?”
“Definitely not.” Danika’s lips are twitching in amusement.
There must be some nickname she has, some shortening—or lengthening—of her name. All Aussies have an affectionate nickname. “Anika?”
The twitch is now a full-blown smile. “Not even close.”
“Annie? Ann? Nikita? Speedy?”
“Speedy?” Danika’s forehead wrinkles. “How did you come up with that?”
“There was a race car driver called Danica something. I’m guessing Speedy’s wrong as well. Nik. Nix. Danka?”