The Drifter

by Anthea Hodgson

  ‘And no kids for Aunty Ida.’

  ‘No,’ Audrey replied regretfully. ‘It wasn’t to be. She and Jack kept up hope for a long time, but she said it just wasn’t in God’s plan for her.’

  ‘Do you think it made her sad?’

  ‘Of course it did, but as I say, she’s a strong woman – and determined – and she just kind of decided eventually to put it behind her. She was certainly a wonderful honorary aunt to my children.’

  Cate felt a stab of guilt that her family hadn’t been out to the farm as much as they could have been over the years. They usually waited for her great-aunt and uncle to come to Perth to catch up; her father still had little interest in the farm and its machinations.

  She held up her attempt for Audrey to inspect.

  ‘Not too bad,’ admitted Audrey. ‘Maybe set yourself the challenge of continuing for forty rows with the same consistency, and the next time I see you we’ll think about the sleeves?’

  ‘Sounds great.’ She took the wool Audrey offered her, making note of its name so she could replace it the next week.

  ‘Hey, Cate.’ It was a whisper. ‘Can you come and get me?’

  Cate sat up from the couch where she had been lying in her pyjamas, soaking up The Walking Dead.

  ‘Where are you?’ she said as she tiptoed to her room so her flatmate didn’t wake up. He had a thing about her being up late making noise. Shift worker.

  ‘I’m at Jackson’s place.’

  ‘Don’t you have your car?’

  ‘Nah – he picked me up.’

  Cate was already pulling her jacket over her pink PJ top. ‘And now you can’t leave?’

  ‘I’m in the toilet.’

  ‘Bridge, what?’

  ‘We broke up.’ Her voice cracked. ‘And now I can’t ask for a lift, and I haven’t got any money on me, and he’s really fucking freaking out. I didn’t know he’d take it this badly.’

  ‘Give me maybe fifteen minutes.’

  ‘Can you get here faster than that?’

  ‘Bridge, I was already being optimistic. Stay put. I’m on my way. Don’t leave the bathroom. Just make toilet noises.’

  ‘I’m NOT making toilet noises!’

  ‘I’ll be there as soon as I can. Just wait for me.’ Her jeans were on, and she was out the door. ‘Bridge?’

  ‘Thanks, Cate.’

  ‘It’s totally fine, Bridge, you’d do the same for me.’ She was climbing into the car and Brigit’s voice sounded stronger.

  ‘Of course I would – most of your boyfriends aren’t nearly as fucking weird as Jackson.’

  Cate grinned and started the car. ‘So now that you’ve finished with him, can I have him? He sounds hot.’

  ‘All yours, babe – allllll yours.’

  CHAPTER 19

  It was date night and Cate was nervous. She had changed her skirt and top a few times, and wondered endlessly about her shoes. She didn’t want to go too high for two reasons, the first being she wasn’t sure how tall Alex was, and secondly, she didn’t want to be overdressed if a country date turned out to be drenching sheep. Which reminded her, she really must have Bronwyn and Kel Riordan over to ask them about sheep care. She brushed her hair again and wondered if she needed a haircut soon. She was used to being well-groomed. At the moment that meant washing the dust off her hands before putting on her sunscreen. Probably Henry’s bad example; some days she expected to find him rolling in dead sheep with Mac.

  Henry. She felt a pang of guilt. Something was bothering him, and she hadn’t spoken to him about it. She looked at herself in the mirror. Was it really her problem? She had enough of her own. She settled on a bright-blue mid-heel, not too high but definitely interested, and texted the girls that she was going out. From bitter and repeated experience, she knew she didn’t have mobile coverage, but she was used to playing phone bingo, letting her phone come into range where it could to send and receive messages from the outside world. She quite liked the bing, bing, bing of texts arriving, although she would have liked to have full coverage a whole lot better.

  A car horn tooted. He was here. She checked herself in the mirror one last time and headed outside. He was coming to the house to knock at the door, and Mac gave him a sniff of approval on the way past, reading messages from Trixie and Bob, the two border collies on Alex’s farm. He looked as good as he had at the pub, only there weren’t two of him this time.

  ‘Hi. You look very nice,’ he said, and kissed her cheek. He was tall, and he was wearing a dark blue fitted shirt with jeans and boots. His sandy-blond hair was cut short, and it complemented the sharp features of his tanned face. His eyes were a soft blue, and they ranged over her as she approached.

  Well. She smiled. Okay, this was going to be easy. It would be fine. ‘Thanks. You look good, too,’ she returned. ‘I didn’t know country boys could look so pretty.’

  ‘We can when we want to,’ he said.

  She held out a bottle of wine. ‘To celebrate making the effort,’ she said.

  He looked very pleased and gestured to his Commodore. ‘Too true – I even washed the car.’

  ‘Not inside and out?’

  ‘Both.’

  ‘This is going to be a great night!’

  He held the door, and she climbed in.

  ‘Where are we going?’

  ‘My place. I’m not a bad cook.’

  She was really happy now. She waited until he dropped into the driver’s seat. ‘That sounds fantastic,’ she said.

  Alex’s house was an old farmhouse that had once been his grandparents’. It was a large sixties fibro, but it had been well maintained, and Alex had obviously made additions and improvements. The garden was spectacular, and there was a swimming pool and tennis court at the side. Cate began to suspect he was the district catch.

  ‘Wow,’ she said. ‘This is really lovely, Alex.’

  He smiled at her proudly.

  ‘I can see why we’re having dinner here – why go out?’ In a moment he was at her door. Then escorting her through the garden, while Trixie and Bob raced around them.

  ‘You do all this?’

  He grinned. ‘Nah, Mum and Dad used to live in this place when we were kids, and Mum’s a gardening freak. She comes over all the time to work on it.’

  ‘Do they still live on the farm?’

  ‘They have a cottage on a different part of the property and they split their time between there and Perth. Semi-retirement.’

  ‘So it all falls to you.’

  ‘Yep. Come in.’

  The interior was as neat as the garden, and something smelled delicious. She looked at him with great interest. ‘Food. Lamb. Some sort of slow-cooking process.’ She sniffed the air. ‘Tomato, garlic . . . marmalade?’

  ‘Hey – you’re good. We’re having lamb shanks. They should be really tender by now. Dad always laughs because we used to feed them to the dogs. Come and have a look.’

  The kitchen was beautiful; it was pale whites and greys, with low pendant lighting and views over the swimming pool to the paddocks beyond. There was a kitchen table you could spend a lot of time at drinking tea. If you drank tea.

  ‘Here.’ Alex poured her a glass of chilled white wine. She savoured her first sip.

  ‘Tell me about the farm,’ she said, and he spoke knowledge­ably about the property and the family’s long history in agriculture, until it was time to eat. He led her to the table. Cate had always loved slow cooking, unless she had to do it herself because she was too disorganised and impatient, but with the shanks prepared so expertly by someone who knew what they were doing, she was in heaven.

  ‘Now, just remind me, how many legs do the little darlings have? Because surely they’re the best bit?’

  ‘Just the four, but you only use the front two for shanks. The hind legs are much larger – for roasts.’

  She scooped up some more gravy and potato. ‘Well, it beats having to peel my own rabbit.’

  He looked surprised. ‘When did yo
u do that?’

  ‘Not so long ago. Henry trapped some and was thoughtful enough to donate their little corpses to Ida and me.’

  ‘You do realise you’ve got sheep wandering about your farm?’ Alex asked, taking another sip of wine.

  ‘Yes, but I think he quite likes it. I think it fits with his homeless-swagman thing.’

  Alex’s eyebrows shot up. ‘Homeless? What’s his story, anyway? Is he really working for Ida?’

  ‘Yeah, and it turns out he’s very competent. What he doesn’t know he seems to work out pretty quickly.’

  ‘Sounds like someone we could use, if he wants to move on. Good workmen are hard to find. Is he honest?’

  She thought of the dubious fashion choices that may have once belonged to her uncle, and the fridge. ‘Yep. As far as I can tell.’

  Alex’s fork teased his carrots. ‘Seems a bit awkward, having him there. Do you trust him?’

  ‘Meaning?’

  ‘Well, he’s a big guy, you don’t really know him, and you’re all alone there…’

  Cate shivered. It sounded quite foolish when you put it like that. She thought about how much of his face the beard covered, like he was hiding. Her mother had always said she’d never trust a man with hair on his face, and maybe Cate kind of agreed. And she’d glimpsed his bullet wound. That was probably not good. If there was an amusing anecdote that went along with it, surely he would have told it by now.

  ‘Yeah, I do, but I feel silly saying that now. I’ll admit it doesn’t look good on paper.’

  ‘And I saw the way he looked when I asked you out. He’s on a leash at the moment, but maybe you don’t want to be alone on the farm with him if the leash comes off.’

  Man, the gravy was drying up on this dinner date in a hurry. She wasn’t sure dessert could save it.

  ‘Well, I hope you didn’t get me over here to nag me about our workman,’ she said, smiling too brightly. ‘I can think of lots of things I’d rather talk about. Do you have any sisters?’

  He did, two: both married and living in Perth. Cate encouraged him to talk about them while she tried to work out good hiding places at Ida’s place in case Henry ever went off the reservation. She had to face it – Henry wasn’t even his real name. She was a complete idiot, but then she’d well and truly proven that already.

  Dessert was chocolate pudding, the king of desserts. It sat proudly on a white dish, waiting for her to scoop into it.

  ‘Go away,’ she said to Alex, ‘I don’t want you to see how fast I eat this.’

  He smiled. ‘Glad you like it.’

  ‘Can I live here?’ she asked. There’s a potentially crazy man at my house, and he seems a bit snippy with me at the moment.

  Alex looked at her a little too long without answering, and she wasn’t sure if he thought she was slightly psychotic herself, or if he thought his cooking had sealed the deal and now his most ardent wish had just been granted. Either way it was slightly creepy. Now she was eating the chocolate pudding fast to keep her mouth busy; who knew what was going to come flying out later?

  ‘So. Not too chocolatey?’

  ‘No such thing.’

  He grinned and opened another bottle. ‘Let’s go to the lounge.’

  His lounge was as large and comfortable as the kitchen. It certainly made a difference when you knocked out a few walls and removed the knick-knacks from the seventies.

  ‘I hear you’ve joined the Ladies’ Church Committee.’

  ‘Yeah, and I was as surprised as anyone. They’re a nice bunch of people, though, and I think I quite like hanging out with women their pace for a while.’

  ‘How long are you staying with Ida?’

  ‘I’m not sure. It depends on how long it takes for her to come home and to regain some strength.’

  ‘She was lucky you were there. It could’ve been much worse. It could’ve been a tragedy.’

  ‘I was lucky to have Henry there to help me get her to the hospital as quickly as we did – she passed out and I couldn’t have carried her.’

  Alex didn’t seem keen to acknowledge Henry’s intervention.

  It was getting late, and she wanted to get home to her intensely uncomfortable bed; tonight she was sleeping on her left-hand side to even out the hump in her back from right-hand Wednesday, and she was really looking forward to it. She glanced at him apologetically.

  ‘I’m really sorry, but it’s getting late and I should be going. Would you mind taking me home?’

  He hesitated. Maybe he was considering pressing his advantage; a bed built since 1962 would be one, for starters, but he nodded, and slowly got to his feet.

  ‘Sure,’ he said easily, ‘although I’d like to keep you here even longer if I could.’

  She laughed lightly. ‘Well, let me know next time you’re baking, and you’ve got me, uh, eating chocolate pudding.’ She wasn’t super sure he knew she was kidding.

  He drove her home through the dark night, passing no one and seeing nothing except a couple of kangaroos on the side of the quiet road.

  ‘It’s getting chilly now at night,’ she offered. ‘I like it.’

  ‘Yeah, you’ll find it gets pretty cold out here. You might want to make sure you’ve got some good heating in Ida’s old place.’ He glanced at her. ‘I can help you, if you like.’

  ‘I’ll see what we’ve got lying around. I want Ida to be comfortable when she comes back.’

  ‘And what if she needs you to stay for a while?’ he asked.

  ‘Then I guess I’ll stay.’

  ‘Nothing to take you back to Perth in a hurry?’

  ‘Nope.’ Except maybe prison.

  They pulled up outside her little garden, and she was inexplicably glad to be home. She had left the light on for Mac but there was no sign of him, so she assumed he had wandered down to talk about the news of the day with Henry. She was out of the car and at the gate quickly; she didn’t want to drag this out. The awkward kiss goodnight. It wasn’t that she didn’t want to kiss Alex. He was a great guy and she’d had a really good time, but there was something purposeful about him, and it was quietly freaking her out. And now here he was, walking her to her door like she was going to get lost between there and the gate.

  ‘Um, well, thanks for an amazing meal, and a lovely night.’

  ‘I hope we can do it again soon.’

  ‘Of course we can. Maybe I’ll cook for you sometime,’ she offered vaguely.

  He kissed her quickly on the lips, and headed down the path. ‘I’ll hold you to that,’ he promised.

  Then he was in the car and gone. She sighed. That was easier than she’d thought.

  She went inside and drank three glasses of water in quick succession. That wine was going to wear off soon and leave dust in her mouth. Mac arrived on the verandah. He had heard her come home. She wandered outside and sat with him in the chilled night air.

  ‘Well, Mac. I’ve been dining with Alex Bernard. Trixie and Bob send their regards.’ She ruffled his old fur, coarse in places and soft under his belly. Here and there it was getting matted from lying around and lack of grooming. She picked out a few grass seeds from under his collar and rubbed his tummy for a while, listening to him chuffing and grunting. He wanted her to go talk to Henry.

  ‘Tomorrow,’ she whispered.

  CHAPTER 20

  The next day was fine. It was a crisp autumn morning. Sarah had asked Cate to sort books at the school library, so she dressed in her town clothes, which were jeans and a T-shirt, with the addition of a jaunty scarf to brighten things up. She made coffee and sat on the verandah, looking at the mudbrick house and wondering what Henry was up to. Mac found her in her sun spot and joined her there, leaning against her and warming his bones. There was the sound of motorbikes on the road that ran past her house, and she turned to watch them pass by. They didn’t; instead they drove up the driveway.

  That was seriously weird and slightly disturbing. Where was Henry? She thought he was feeding sheep out the back. She glanc
ed about. Maybe they wanted to buy fuel. Would she be stupid to sell them some, or would she make them angry if she sent them back to town? Where was Henry?

  ‘Morning,’ the first one said as he approached her. He was a tall guy with an almost-shaved head, wearing dark leathers and dark glasses. It made him hard to read. Mac disappeared around the side of the house.

  ‘Morning,’ she returned, looking confident.

  ‘I’m Kruger. Me and the boys are looking for Patrick Townsend.’

  Oh. This wasn’t going to be good. Wherever Henry was, she hoped he stayed away. Patrick, eh? Focus. ‘Oh, okay,’ she said. Of course he’s your friend. That’s why he’s here with a fake name and a big beard, and he didn’t tell you where he was.

  ‘I’m sorry to say that I don’t have any idea about a – Patrick Townsend? Have you tried one of the larger centres, like Narrogin? If he’s visiting the area, he’s far more likely to be staying there.’

  Kruger shrugged off the information impatiently. ‘We had a tip-off he might be in the district, from a friend.’

  She gestured helplessly around. ‘Well, I think I’d notice if a – Patrick? – was hanging about the place. Is there a number I can contact you on if I bump into him?’

  The leather-clad visitors considered her for a few long moments, then Kruger shook his head.

  ‘No, I guess we got the wrong information. We’ll be on our way.’

  A wave of relief flooded through her. ‘I’m so sorry I couldn’t help more.’ One of Kruger’s friends stamped his feet in frustration and looked around the bikes, as if he might find a clue. And he might. She moved towards their bikes. ‘Where do you think you might go next?’ she asked.

  Kruger was climbing on his bike. She tried to note what it looked like in case the police asked her later. She thought maybe it was a Triumph with blue bits on it. That should help.