Read Online The Nature of Ice by Robyn Mundy - Free Book Online Page B

do better than Mawson’s journal. Davis’s is floating somewhere round the traps.’ Malcolm sidles between the chairs and plucks a lilac-coloured volume from the bookcase, handing it to Freya as though it were a required text. ‘Blockbusters, the pair of’em.’
    â€˜Great. Thanks.’
    He returns to the magazine cupboard and snaps the doors shut. ‘Better than wasting your time on this mind-numbing rot.’
    Everything shipshape and stowed away, Malcolm evaporates from the lounge as suddenly as he materialised. He leaves Freya feeling she should sit up straight, improve her posture, find better things to do than slouch about in socks. Blockbusters. She wouldn’t put it past him to follow up with study questions.
    FOLLOWING DINNER, A GROUP DRIFTS in from the dining room to gather around the bar. A clack of pool balls reverberates through the lounge, lights flood the dartboard, Meteorology vs Whitecoats chalked up on the blackboard. Chad McGonigal keeps to the sidelines, rinsing empty beer bottles for recycling. The help-yourself fridge is filled to the gills with homebrew—Adélie Ale, Davis Draught, Blizz Bitter and more. Bottling nights are a production assembly line rarely short of volunteers.
    According to Fling, wintering sparkie and brewmaster extraordinaire, the reputation of Davis beer has gained international renown, confirmed by a tourist icebreaker that called in last summer. ‘’Twas only a matter of time,’ he declares to those gathered at the bar. Chad listens to Fling ease from his usual Scottish brogue into his best Texan drawl, mimicking the couple that had declined tea and coffee. ‘Howzabout a li’lla’ that holm-broo y’awl got stashed away.’ Always good for a yarn, is Fling.
    â€˜Wouldn’t you know,’ the brewmaster continues, reverting to his Glaswegian lilt, ‘before Chad could summon up a fresh tray of glasses, we had a score of Americans, six German neurologists, and a family of Italians sporting designer jackets with sealskin trims forming a queue from the bar, out through the lounge and clogging up the entry to the cold porch. Even the two wee bairns waited in line. Chad, is that not God’s truth?’
    Chad nods. Fling empties his glass. ‘Poor old Chad’s morning tour of the station was reduced to a smattering of teetotallers.’
    â€˜The fewer the better,’ Chad says, though his words are drowned out by laughter.
    Charlie makes a space for the new arrival. ‘Here she is, the little battler. Survived your day as super slushy, Freya?’
    â€˜Barely. Thanks for helping out this morning.’
    â€˜Chad,’ Charlie calls. ‘Get the girl a drink before she drops in her tracks.’
    But Freya doesn’t need his help; she stands at the fridge scanning the homebrew before holding up a bottle marked Ginger Beer.
    â€˜Kicks like a mule,’ Fling boasts.
    The recycled bottle still wears the remnants of a Japanese beer label. Chad watches Freya carrying the bottle at arm’s length in case the fermented brew, like a dodgy firework, explodes unannounced.
    He studies her as she uncaps the bottle and pours herself a drink, the sight of the foaming liquid washing his thoughts back to his own homebrewing days.
    He remembers the pinch of sunburned skin pink with calamine lotion on a night too hot for a ten-year-old to sleep indoors. Lying in a canvas swag his father had rigged between two trees, he could spy Orion through the mosquito mesh. If he concentrated hard he could add up each star that winked—his count roundly broken by an almighty blast from the boatshed. At the second explosion he sat up, resigned to a third. His latest batch of ginger beer had blown its caps.
    He could hear the old man up on the verandah, Thar she blows, Sal .
    Ma’s belly laugh could fill all five rooms of the shack, roly-poly down the hill to the beach and still have enough in reserve