It was nearly two hours later that we left the police station. Although I’d been fine during the interview, my knees were wobbly as Sue and I walked out to the street. I wanted nothing more than to flop down somewhere and stare upwards.
“Got time for a beer?” I said to Sue.
“If it’s a quick one. I’ll have to leave soon if I’m to get back to Mungabilly Creek before dusk.”
We went into the Commercial. My eyes instinctively searched behind the bar for a familiar curly head, but the bar person was a young girl with an indeterminate European accent who fumbled her way through our order for two pots. Madge watched her with steely eyes from one end of the counter. She was probably regretting letting Josie go.
We drank our beers, and gradually the tension of the past few hours seeped out of me.
Sue pulled her mobile out of her pocket and shunted it across the table to me. “So call her.”
The phone lay face up. I stared at Moni’s face on the screensaver and wished I had someone I loved, someone whose face would be on my phone.
“I’ll go away if you want privacy,” Sue added. “Her number’s in my contacts.”
I picked up the phone. “No, it’s fine. You can stay.”
I found Josie’s number and pressed the call button. On the third ring her voicemail kicked in with a simple, “Hi, this is Josie, please leave a message.”
I hung up. I didn’t know what to say. What I could say in a one minute message? I pushed the phone back to Sue. She took it without saying a word.
“I know,” I said. “You think I’m chickening out.”
She quirked an eyebrow.
“Okay, I am chickening out.”
“At least you know it.”
She didn’t say any more. She didn’t have to.
CHAPTER 27
The missed opportunity weighed on me during the drive back to Jayboro. I was behaving like an idiot.
I checked my email and found one from Pen. She included a link to an article on Fiery Lights. More details had been released, and for the first time, I read about the purpose of the lookalike horses. It seemed that the gang had purchased several chestnut thoroughbred mares which, to the casual observer, were identical to Fiery Lights. Calling each horse Flame and implanting each horse with a fake microchip identifying them as Fiery Lights, they placed them with unsuspecting horse yards around the country. Apart from our Flame and the two horses in Victoria, there were two in New South Wales, one in Western Australia, and another in Queensland. The gang members posted to various horse forums, using false names and dropping mention of a horse they knew that looked like Fiery Lights. The idea was to create a quiet buzz about the fake horses and ideally get the feds on alert, watching the imposters. Then, at the same time that someone tried to take our Flame, each lookalike horse was removed from their agistment, given fake papers, and taken to different seaports where they were bound for various destinations: New Zealand, southeast Asia, even America. With the feds already on alert, the gang hoped to create enough confusion to tie up border security at various seaports with the lookalike horses. They hoped that as each horse was checked and found to have a microchip identifying them as Fiery Lights, it would create enough confusion that the real Fiery Lights—disguised and implanted with a microchip identifying her as an ex-racehorse, would pass through unnoticed. By the time the feds had waded through the confusion, Fiery Lights would be out of Australian waters, on her way to the Middle East.
It was a long article, and I got to the end of it, sat back, and rubbed my eyes. It was an ingenious plan, which very nearly worked. Australia’s borders were notoriously understaffed, and with multiple reports of Fiery Lights being shipped out of the country coming in at once, the real horse would have slipped out easily.
I wondered what would happen now. With this information now public knowledge, would Josie be allowed to leave Worrindi? Maybe she had already left, and that was why she hadn’t answered her phone.
I thought about my life as I did a final check on the horses, a last walk around the campground that evening. My life alone. Josie was doubtlessly making plans to move to Victoria. The question was: did I want her to stay? Was I prepared to put our past history behind us and commit to her wholeheartedly? Was I prepared to put myself out there and ask her to stay with me?
I pondered the question as I ate my solitary dinner, and it was still rattling around my brain when I sat on the veranda with a beer. Tess came over and put her head on my knee, and I petted her.
“What do you think, Tess? Should I ask Josie to stay? One bark for yes, two barks for no.”
Tess barked once, and I smiled. “Clever dog.” But then she leapt away from me and raced to the other end of the veranda, barking furiously at the bobbing torch light going down the driveway. It must be a camper taking a late-night stroll.
Memories of Josie were everywhere. I took a shower and pictured her form, made blurry by water and indistinct behind the glass of the partition. And when I got into bed, the space on the other side was empty. Her space. I lay on my back and put my hands behind my head, staring up at the ceiling. Moonlight made light and shade in the room, and the night was warm. I got up again and turned on the ceiling fan, but it was still uncomfortably hot. I threw the sheet off, and lay naked to the movement of air. I turned from side to side. Tess, too, seemed restless. She paced around the bed, claws clicking on the wooden boards. Then her head appeared, resting on the mattress, right in my face.
“Come on then.” I sat up and patted the foot of the bed. Tess jumped straight up. She’d never slept on my bed before; she was a big dog and I liked to sprawl in my sleep. Just this once, I reasoned. But if Josie didn’t come back, then Tess may be my only bed companion.
Tess settled once she was at my feet, but I was still restless. I looked at my watch, glowing faintly in the moonlight. Just gone eleven. There was no way I was going to sleep anytime soon. I got out of bed, pulled on a T-shirt and undies, and went into the kitchen. Tess padded behind me—she probably thought she was in for a late night treat.
I found a tin of hot chocolate at the back of the cupboard, made myself a mug, and took it outside. Moonlight cast silver shadows over the ground. There was the click of a night bird, and over in the campground a small fire glowed brightly.
Thoughts of my parents slid into my head. They had lived together at Jayboro for nearly forty years. In that time, they had had their ups and downs, but they had faced them together. When I was young, when other kids’ parents were splitting up and getting back together or getting new partners, I’d never doubted my parents’ love for each other or for me.
They had always been the yardstick I’d held up to any potential partner. But they had taken a risk in the start: the station hand and the rodeo girl from far away. They had made it work. They had been happy. But somewhere, back in the mists of doubt at the start of their relationship, one of them must have taken a chance and laid themselves bare to the other. One of them must have set their heart on the line, open for rejection, if that was what was meant to be.
And here was I. Thirty-eight years old. Living in a place I loved, but living here alone. Maybe I didn’t have to be.
But what, a voice whispered in my head, what if Josie doesn’t want you? What if she doesn’t want to live here? What if she wants you, but not Jayboro? Would you leave Jayboro for her?
That question was unanswerable. My life was here and, more lately, my business. I couldn’t just walk out.
I pictured Sue and Moni. Their relationship hadn’t been a stroll in the bush. Not only was Moni an American, but when she’d got together with Sue she’d been living nearly four hundred kilometres away in the Isa. But they had made it work, because they had wanted to.
Even if Josie didn’t want to live at Jayboro, at least we could try. At least then, I’d know I’d given it a shot, rather than wondering what if, what if, what if.
I got up from the couch and went into the office and picked up the phone.
Josie’s number was written on a sticky note stuck on my computer monitor. Maybe Sue had put it there. I called the number. Once again, it went to voicemail, but this time, I left a message.
“Hi Josie. It’s me, Felix. I’m wondering how you’re going, whether you’re still in Worrindi. I miss you. It would be nice to hear from you.” I hesitated. “I love you.”
I hung up, heart pounding. Had I really said that?
When I went back to bed, sleep still didn’t come easily. Even Tess deserted me, jumping down away from my restless legs and twitching feet to sleep in her normal position at the foot of the bed.
I was finally drifting off to sleep when the phone rang. I sat bolt upright as if someone had jammed a fencepost up my arse. For a minute, I was disorientated. The phone shrilled again. I leapt out of bed and ran barefoot through the house to the office. I stubbed my toe on the leg of a chair, cursed, and half ran, half hopped the rest of the way. Tess followed at my heels, barking joyfully as if this were some new game.
I lunged for the phone in the dark, missed, and sent it and the base crashing to the floor. The phone stopped ringing.
“Shit. Fuck. Bugger.” I went back and turned on the light. Not only had I knocked the phone from the desk, I’d also sent a half-drunk cup of cold coffee flying. There was a spreading stain on the rug. Leaving the cup where it was, I picked up the phone and set it and its base back on the desk.
It rang again.
I picked it up before the echo of the first ring died away. “Hello.”
“Felix.”
I knew the voice. How could I not. I’d heard it in my head as I’d stalked around the campground for the past couple of days, and I’d visualised the owner riding alongside me across my land.
“Hi, Josie.”
I waited. I’d been the one to call her, so I should speak, but my throat was locked tight. Tentative coils of hope unfurled. She had called me. There must be a reason.
“I got your message,” she said, and the line fell silent. A quiet sigh, then she spoke again. “I’m doing okay. I couldn’t talk Madge into giving me my job back. She said she’d found a backpacker from Finland who works for half what I was getting. It’s illegal, of course, but that’s the way it is.”
The inept person I’d seen behind the bar. Madge would regret that choice, that was for sure.
“The police say I can leave town. They’ve given me my passport back, and I’m officially not a suspect. They found Barney and arrested him. During questioning, he verified my story. Not to clear my name, of course. I’m sure he couldn’t give a rat’s arse about me. But he gave them enough information while trying to save his own skin that he confirmed my innocence. The police ask that I keep in contact, as I’ll be a witness at some point, but I’m off the hook for being thrown in jail. At least for now.”
“That’s good.” Indeed, it was. Until Josie said it, I hadn’t realised how a little nugget of worry had sat heavily in my chest. Not for myself, but for Josie.
“I’m still in Worrindi,” she said, “but I’m leaving tomorrow. I’ve got a job as a cook on a station about seven hundred kilometres to the south. The last cook left in a hurry, and they’re desperate.” She gave a short, humourless laugh. “They must be desperate to hire me. Madge gave me a good enough reference, it’s not that, but my cooking is a bit haphazard. I hope they like burnt chops and mashed potatoes. It’s my speciality. Maybe I’ll get to Victoria eventually, but I’m not in a position to pass up a job offer after this length of time without work.”
She was going. Leaving Worrindi, just as she’d said she would. For a moment, I considered the bright and breezy approach, the one that protected my pride, if not my heart. The one that would have me saying, That’s great, Josie, I’m sure you’ll do well. See you around. But words not spoken, mine, hers, had already brought us to this point. I had to throw my heart out there, even if she threw it straight back. And the hardest words had already been spoken.
“Is that what you want, Josie? A new place, a new start?” I was still taking the easy way out. I was still making her come to me.
I could visualise the shrug of her tanned shoulder. “Well, I need a job. And there’s one going on Glenoak Station. It’s the only offer I have.”
“Do you want to stay on Jayboro? With me?” My mouth was dry, and in the moments of silence that followed, I felt light-headed with that queasy feeling that tightens your guts as you wait for something. I’d last had that unbearable freeze-time of anticipation when I was in the hospital at the Isa, waiting for the doctor to tell me Mum’s test results.
Josie sighed. “What are you offering, Felix? We’ve already had so many layers of misunderstanding between us; I don’t want another one.”
“I love you.” I said the words and waited with pounding heart.
“Thank you.” Her voice was quiet and I had to strain to hear. “But I’m still not sure what that means to us right now. Maybe you need to consider exactly what you are offering me. If I stay with you, I need to know how we stand. It’s easy to say words.”
“It isn’t for me. I’ve never said them before to a woman.”
She was silent for a moment. “I’ll have to leave at seven tomorrow morning at the absolute latest if I’m to get to Glenoak Station by dusk. If you mean what you’ve said, if you are sure about what you’re offering me, then come and say it in person. So that I can look in your eyes, and you can look at me, and we can work out what we mean to each other. If you’re not here, then I’ll leave. No hard feelings if you reconsider in the meantime.”
My chest was tight. How would I get to Worrindi by seven with everything I had to do in the morning? “Where are you staying?”
“I’m at Alain and Narelle’s. They offered me a bed while I looked for work.”
I hadn’t even known she knew them that well.
“Bye, Felix. Maybe I’ll see you in the morning.”
A click as she hung up. I put the phone back on the rest and pressed the heels of my hands into my eye sockets, trying to rub away the confusion. It would be difficult to be there by seven. I had horses to look after, a campsite to run, office work to do. My life.
But Josie might also be a part of that life, and if I let her walk away, for no better reason than I was too busy to get to town, how would I feel then?
I’d feel as if I’d missed a huge chance. There were no guarantees in life, and certainly not in love, but that was no reason to let opportunities slide by.
I had to go to her. I looked at the clock glowing on the far side of the room. It was just gone one in the morning. I would have to be up in three hours. Josie had said she was leaving at seven. That meant I had to be there at six at the latest if we were to have any chance of resolving anything before she had to drive away. I could leave at five and be there by half-past.
Or I could leave now.
“What do you think, Tess?” I said to my dog. “Fancy a drive in the dark?”
It was something I only did in the direst of emergencies. Outback roads were lethal between dusk and dawn. Kangaroos were unpredictable and were responsible for many single vehicle crashes. Cattle were hard to see in the dark and, on the unfenced roads, were like moveable brick walls. Even the smaller wildlife was a hazard. But this was an emergency; I would drive slowly.
I grabbed the keys to the ute, turned off the lights, and went outside. Tess bounded joyfully at my side, ready for the adventure.
I drove a lot slower than usual, eyes peeled for wildlife. I saw a couple of big red ’roos, but they didn’t move from their position by the side of the road. Forty-five minutes later, I cut the engine outside of Alain and Narelle’s house. The night was a bright one. A half-moon glazed the sky with light, and the stars blazed silver. The gate creaked, and I walked up the path. I knew where the spare room was; I’d stayed there myself in the past. I went down the side of the house counting the windows until I came to the right one. Although the house was single storey, it was raised on stilts out of any
floodwaters from Birragum Creek. I bent and picked up some gravel from the path and threw it at the window. Most of it missed and tapped quietly on the timber wall, but some fell in through the open portion of the window. I got another handful and aimed again, and this time it clattered against the glass.
I waited for a minute, but there was no movement inside. I crouched to grab a third handful of stones, and as I straightened, Tess barked once, her happy welcome bark, and Josie appeared at the window.
“Don’t throw more,” she said in a low voice, mindful of the sleeping people around. “I don’t want a face full of gravel. Wait a moment; I’ll come out.”
I went around to the front of the house. In a couple of minutes, Josie appeared, wearing shorts and an old T-shirt. Her hair was snarled around her face. She let herself out of the front door and came down the steps to where I stood. Tess greeted her enthusiastically, pushing her head into Josie’s hand and trying to lick her face when Josie bent to pat her.
Josie straightened and looked at me. Even in the moonlight, her gaze pierced through me and her eyes glittered. “Shall we walk?” She gestured to the empty street.
I nodded and, with Tess running ahead, we went out of the gate and turned away from the town so that we were heading for the open bush. For the first few minutes, we didn’t say anything. As I paced alongside Josie, I wondered how to begin. For this was my call. I had made the offer. I now had to follow it up.
Fenced-In Felix Page 26
