‘How long has he been living here?’ she asked, looking sceptical. She was used to knowing everything about people – she liked an open book.
‘Uh, I suppose four months or so? I’m not too sure. It might be longer. He’s very helpful to Aunty Ida – I couldn’t have got her to the hospital so quickly without him.’ She took a sip of wine. ‘She adores him.’
‘Is that so?’ Deirdre stated baldly. ‘It’s not that surprising. Ida was often taken with flights of fancy. Calling Henry a swagman. He’s not a swagman.’
‘Is that because he shaved? Or because he’s hot?’ Sarah asked. She’d had the perfect amount of wine.
Cate grinned like the kissing idiot she so obviously was. And Henry bashfully entered the room.
‘Henry! Where have you been?’ Tricia demanded. ‘Our busy-bee party needs a bit of male company!’ There was general agreement. I mean. Just look at him.
Cate picked up another choc-pecan best friend and put the whole thing in her mouth. That was better. That was much better.
‘Sorry, uh, just getting a few things finished.’
Deirdre glared at him like she suspected he was stealing the silver or taking drugs in the lounge room. She’d be checking later.
‘Oh, we are just happy to have the chance to feed you, that’s all!’ laughed Lara.
‘And maybe get you drunk!’
He glanced at Cate. She was busy. Eating the greatest biscuit in the world. There was a split second of silence between them that not one woman in the room missed.
‘Well,’ announced Tricia, as she handed him a mug with a sheep playing golf on it. ‘Here’s to Ida coming home!’ There were cheers all round and the clinking of cheap china. Henry smiled shyly, like an outside dog sneaking in under the radar.
CHAPTER 28
The next day Kel Riordan arrived to teach Cultivating 101. He climbed out of his ute and wandered over to the sheds first, where he found Henry, and they both came to find Cate, who may have had a slight headache. She was eating a choc-chip moon biscuit for comfort when they knocked on the door.
‘Hello, Kel,’ she said. ‘Great to see you again.’
‘I hear you had a busy bee here yesterday. Looks great.’
‘Thanks.’ She handed him a biscuit.
‘Any more news on Ida?’ he asked hopefully.
‘Not in the last couple of days. I don’t think she’s enjoying being stuck in the city, but I’m sure my parents are doing their best for her.’
‘It must be hard for her to be so far from home,’ Kel said, and Cate felt a double pang of guilt, because everyone knew that her own family wasn’t home for Ida, and because she was still there and not where she wanted to be.
Kel nodded, satisfied. ‘Let’s get to work, shall we?’
The next couple of hours were spent learning everything Cate expected she would ever have to know about slightly old-school farm machinery. She listened to Kel’s gentle voice, telling them both about how the tractor and the scarifier worked, and climbed up and sat in the seat like a child at an agricultural show, bemused and happy. She let Henry catch all the details. He was already asking intelligent questions and she knew he would make sure he knew what to do. He was practical in a way her father had never been, taking pleasure in working with his hands and satisfaction at the end of a long day when the job was done.
When they finally reached the paddock, it was Cate’s task to start, mainly so she didn’t have time to forget what she had been told.
‘Okay, climb on me for a sec and I’ll give you the final run-down,’ Henry said, slapping his thigh like he hadn’t just asked her to place herself on his person.
She did a double take. ‘Pardon?’
He laughed. ‘Come on, sweetheart, it’s quicker if you sit in this position for a second and I show you the levers. It’s not a big deal.’ He looked at her, his hands and his eyebrows raised with impatience, as though she was wasting everyone’s time and being princessy.
She blew out in exasperation, and gingerly and reluctantly placed her backside on his hard thigh. Just the one.
‘Now,’ he said, ‘this one brings the gear up and down . . .’
She hoped she could remember what Kel had said earlier. She wasn’t getting a word of it. Not a word. His voice became softer and even lower, as if he was telling her about the gears in secret. Blah blah blah, something something, and now she was nestled in his lap and he seemed to need to show her how to steer the thing as well, because his huge arms came around her, and he was extraordinarily warm and welcome, his voice rumbling through his chest and through her back. She was flushed and her heart was pounding. Man, tractors were totally awesome.
He slapped her thigh in a friendly manner. ‘So, that’s the end of the lesson. Would you like me to come around with you a few times?’
She cleared her throat. ‘Nope. Get out!’
He grinned and jumped from the cab to the ground in one easy movement, and she was off.
At first she concentrated on not crashing the Massey, which was made easier by the lack of targets in the paddock, and on mentally rehearsing stopping the thing if she needed to. It felt strange to be in charge of a fairly big piece of machinery. Quite often she was surprised anyone let her drive a car, and yet Henry and Kel were happy to sign off on the party girl taking the tractor for a spin.
She was bouncing along on the squeaking old seat, looking around at the job: a 100-hectare paddock covered in emerging capeweed, rye grass and sheep manure. She pushed the lever down and slowly dipped into the earth. She was ripping up. She watched the fence line anxiously – Kel had told her a newbie mistake was to forget to check and hook it out of the ground, then drag the fence along behind the tractor. Henry would laugh his arse off. Well, she glanced up and back again; he wasn’t going to get the chance.
She slowly navigated the first bend and headed north. The sun hit the windscreen of the Massey Ferguson, flashing in her eyes. She squinted, looking down and away for a while as she adjusted. It filled the cool cabin with warmth, it lit up the dust on the floor and made patterns of light and shade on the window beside her. She turned again, checked the scarifier, checked the fence, adjusted the depth, made sure she was straight. She noticed a tree coming up along the fence. She’d have to go around. She was strangely looking forward to the challenge now she had nearly completed her first circuit.
She came back past Henry and Kel. They were leaning on the side of the ute, talking about farming. She could tell Henry liked Kel’s gentle approach to teaching, and he was keen to learn. They were both wearing checked flannel shirts because it was kind of compulsory, and they were mirroring each other, both leaning on the ute with their arms folded. They looked up as she passed, checking she was okay, still comfortably talking in the late autumn sunshine. Two blokes and a ute; Henry would be loving it. And the tractor rumbled on, with Cate gently guiding the wheel, bouncing across last season’s furrows, having the time of her life.
She kept going for hours. Henry came back to check on her and filled her up with diesel again, and she was off. He couldn’t convince her to stop. Eventually he came back to relieve her and she reluctantly set off for home in the ute, with Henry heading off along the same small and ever-decreasing track.
She got home and fed the chooks. She could hear the tractor in the distance, chugging in circles. She had a hot shower and stretched out her back. When she was dressed, she called Ida.
‘Well, hello, dear! How’s the ripping up going?’
She stretched again. ‘Really well. We’re not doing much, but we’re having a great time playing tractors. I think Henry wants to move out of his car and into the Massey Ferguson.’
Ida laughed. Cate knew she couldn’t call her without giving her a couple of Henry stories. It made her happy just to hear Henry’s name.
Hey, Aunty Ida, he kissed me in the bathroom yesterday and I nearly died. His mouth is so soft – no, his lips are soft – his mouth is firm, and his hands know where I am �
�� wherever I am, he can find me there. And he tastes like champagne.
‘And is it cold out there, dear? It gets so cold at this time of the year.’
‘Yeah, it’s getting pretty cold, but we’ve put extra heaters around, and Henry’s chopped enough wood for a nuclear winter. We’ve got the bathroom, the kitchen, the lounge and your bedroom covered.’
Her aunt sounded satisfied. She appeared to be moving, very slowly, maybe going back to her own room.
‘I don’t feel as if I’m coming home, dear,’ she said softly, and Cate wasn’t sure if she heard breath in her voice or the beginnings of tears.
‘Of course you are, Aunty Ida.’
‘I don’t think so, dear, and no one seems interested in discussing it with me. I think they may not want to upset me with the truth. Your parents want me to have surgery, but I don’t want to, dear. I don’t want to.’
‘Why not, Aunty Ida?’ she asked, but she already knew what she was going to say.
‘Because it won’t work, dear. It’ll be painful and it’ll tie me to the hospital. That’s not where I belong. I belong on the farm. I want to come home, dear. Right now.’
Dammit. She’d have to speak to them. She wasn’t about to patronise her aunt and tell her she was wrong. She already knew her parents had decided she should have heart surgery. She thought of more news from Windstorm, and described the changes around the house to her again in detail.
‘It sounds like quite a party, dear! I do miss all my friends very much, you know. It was just Jack and I for so long at Windstorm. They’re all my family now. And with Jack gone . . .’
Cate thought of Ida in Perth with her dutiful niece and nephew, who didn’t really want her there but who were kind people duty-bound to do the right thing.
‘We’ll have another one when you come home again, Aunty Ida,’ she promised. She looked out through the sparkling windows to the fresh rosemary bushes outside and knew, in that moment, that she wasn’t pretending anymore.
It was four p.m. when Cate went back to the paddock to relieve Henry, and the air was already cooling in the late-afternoon sun. She could hear the Brodericks still going around in their paddocks and she could see another tractor on the horizon she guessed was the Bernards’. It felt good to be a part of it. She leaned on the ute, waiting for him to come back around. He had finished one paddock and moved on to a larger one slightly closer to home. The roof of the tractor pulled up and over the rise. She waited a few more minutes and he was shutting it down briefly. He jumped out of the cab and strode across the tilled earth towards her.
‘What are you doing here?’ he asked.
‘I’m relieving you. Go home, have a shower at my place. I’m firing her up again.’
He put his hands on his hips. ‘You’re not serious.’
‘Of course I am. It’s my turn – you’ve had your chance.’
He looked impressed. ‘I guess I just thought you’d do day shift and I’d do the rest.’
‘No, I want to get back on and you should let me while it’s still a novelty. I’m well known for getting sick of things in a hurry.’
He shrugged. ‘Well, you’re the boss.’ He reached for something on the floor of the ute. ‘I forgot. I got you these at the co-op. I’m sick of seeing you in your chick boots.’
She glanced down at her ruined city boots. They had looked good on a night out but they wouldn’t anymore. He handed her a set of Blundstones. She turned them over and inspected the tractor tyres on the bottom. They were pretty much the opposite of style. They were chunky and mannish. She felt unexpected tears fill her eyes.
‘Oh, God, sorry. You hate them, don’t you?’ he asked, wincing.
She hugged him hard, reaching up to throw her arms around his neck. He was embarrassed, and noticed something very important on the tilled earth for a moment, staring at it as if it was a ruby or a pearl, then he reluctantly glanced at her face again, pained and bashful.
‘Thanks, Henry,’ she said, and said no more.
He sat her on the tray of the ute and slipped her city boots from her feet, then fitted her Blundies, pushing the heel on with the palm of his hand. She slipped off the back of the ute and walked to the tractor without a word, because she couldn’t say, Thank you for thinking of me, or Thank you for having faith in me, and she could never say, Please don’t go.
She swung up into the cab like she had done it a hundred times, waved at him and turned the key. She pulled on the headphones to dull the roar, and set off on another slow journey to the centre of the paddock.
Night fell slowly and Cate watched it change around her, chugging along, moving across the dirt her great-uncle had known so well. The light along the horizon stretched out as the sun fell into the earth and threw up a soft golden glow that dusted the pale early grass yellow and glinted off the water in the dam in the next paddock.
She wished Uncle Jack was there to tell her stories about the farm. He would have known each paddock. When she was a child he’d say, Can you come and pick me up at the soak paddock, dear? And Aunty Ida would know which one he meant because she had been to the place where there had once been vegetables growing. Or he might have said, I got a flat in the old pig paddock today, or I was up near the bush where the kangaroos live, or I had my sandwiches under the gum tree where we buried Zorba the Greek.
And her aunt would know where he meant. Cate wanted to know the farm like that. She looked out across it slowly going to sleep, a flock of galahs finding home for the night in the salmon gums down the hill and the rabbits just waking and thinking about coming out of their burrows, their little noses flickering in the chilly air, waiting to smell a fox. The sun was gone and the short twilight was dwindling into sleep. She looked out at the other tractors and saw they had flicked on their lights. She did the same, because she didn’t want to stop until the job was done.
She drove on through the early evening, thinking about where she was going and why. She felt little pull to the city now, but she wondered if that meant she should stay or if she was just good at running away from herself. Henry wouldn’t be here. Don’t be thinking he’ll be some great saviour and you’ll live here with Henry and forget about what you did, she told herself. Henry’s got something in his past he won’t even tell you about. And he’s moving on again. Soon. Anyone with half a brain – and please, God, surely that’s you – can tell that Alex Bernard is a much better bet. He’s very cute, charming, sophisticated – he has an actual address. He has a family who know where he is, and he doesn’t look like he’s ever killed anyone.
She glanced at her watch in the gloom of the cab and saw it was approaching midnight. When did that happen? She stretched her neck from one side to the other. The paddock was nearly done. She’d just finish, then she’d head home. The Brodericks had gone home for the night, but she could still see someone seeding on the Riordans’ place. She had a strange feeling of solidarity, and she wondered if Uncle Jack had felt it, too.
Dear Brigit, I’m driving a tractor in the middle of the night, and I think Uncle Jack is watching me. Can you see him?
Dear Brigit, I kissed the wrong one. I kissed Henry, and it was fantastic.
She was done. She ploughed the final pass, grinning like a punch-drunk idiot. Wow. Only one more small paddock tomorrow and their tiny cropping program was complete. She took the tractor to the edge of the paddock and switched it off, checking everything was set for tomorrow. They would need to move the fuel truck in the morning. She stepped out of the cab and into the stillness of the farm. Not a sound, except for a Riordan in the distance, driving around a dark paddock in the middle of the night.
The air was biting. She walked over to the ute, with her new boots making small puffing noises in the tilled soil. She opened the door and stopped. Henry was sitting in the driver’s seat, sleeping. How long had he been there? She slowly reached out and touched his shoulder.
‘Henry? Henry? What are you doing? It’s freezing bloody cold.’
He was sta
rtled to life again and breathed in a quiet yawn. ‘Cate – ’ He looked bashful. ‘I was waiting for you.’
‘Why on earth were you doing that?’ she asked. ‘I do know my way home.’
‘Of course you do. I just noticed you weren’t home around nine o’clock and I thought I’d walk up and check you were okay. Then I thought I’d wait because I thought you were a normal person who would stop work soon.’
‘Sorry. I was in the zone. I didn’t know I was slowly freezing you to death.’
He shrugged. ‘Don’t worry about it. The ute’s probably a bit warmer than the old house at the moment anyway.’
She walked around and climbed in next to him. He smiled at her. ‘How are the boots?’ he asked. His face was lit by the dashboard but it was shadowy and soft. She looked hard at his hands on the steering wheel.
‘Don’t go,’ she said.
He pretended he hadn’t heard her, or perhaps he hadn’t; he’d been starting the ute at the time and it wasn’t her greatest moment, so she probably just mumbled it anyway. The words weren’t supposed to come bumbling out of her mouth. The ute rumbled along the race, pushing the tired yellow light ahead of them, finding their way home through the cold night. She looked out into the darkness and wished she was there already. They pulled up at Ida’s and she jumped out.
‘Are you going straight to bed?’ he asked. ‘I suppose you’re tired.’
She shrugged. ‘I’ll probably have a drink. It’s been a big day and I feel like celebrating.’
He paused, like they were on an awkward date, then got slowly out of the ute. She could see his breath floating in white clouds from his lips. ‘Could I join you?’ he asked.
She stamped her feet against the chill and made herself face him. ‘Okay,’ she said. ‘I’m just surprised you’re actually asking to come in. I kind of thought we needed to be under zombie attack for that to happen.’
He smiled at her, and her heart fluttered away from her again. ‘Was Brigit as big a pain in the arse as you?’
The Drifter Page 21
