by Debra Oswald
Of course, Sheena knew this was not a simple case of Kieran having a mood-lifting sexcapade. This wasn’t simple at all. Her little brother had catapulted himself into a dangerous situation that he needed to be extricated from as soon as possible.
As Kieran approached the cabin door he smiled at Sheena – one of those I’m happy, so I want everyone else to be happy smiles.
‘Hey, big sister. Y’know, from over there you can get a massive lungful of warm peaches and it’s – ahhh . . .’ He sucked in a big breath and staggered as if stoned. Then he righted himself and adopted a deliberate, sober tone. ‘I’ve been thinking, Sheena . . .’
‘Thinking? Steady on. Remember what happened last time you did that.’
‘No, listen – I was thinking I could get a permanent job on a farm. That’s something I could do, I reckon.’
Sheena was thrown off guard. That wasn’t the conversation topic she’d been expecting. And she was thrown because it wasn’t an entirely stupid idea. A physical job, away from the city, would be a good move for a guy like him. If he could stick with it. Once she recovered from the shock of Kieran having a half-decent idea, she capitalised on this thought of his, in order to steer him clear of trouble.
‘Well, you know what,’ she said, ‘we could follow the picking circuit if you like – soon as we earn enough here to get the car back. We could do the grapes in Mildura, then head along the Murray in time for the tomatoes.’ She’d been asking Roza a few questions about the harvest timetable, figuring it might be a good plan for Kieran, given how well he’d taken to the picking work. Deciding on the next step had become more urgent now that he and the girl had got their pink bits tangled up.
Kieran was smiling at Sheena, but he wasn’t going with her plan.
‘Why leave here? There’s still plenty of work on this place,’ he said.
‘We could finish the peaches for Celia, then do the nectarines.’
‘Oh right. And do you really think you’re Celia’s favourite person right now?’
‘She’s a bit freaked out, sure. But you know what happened to Zoe’s dad. I mean, that poor lady. That’s how come she gets nervous when unexpected stuff happens.’
‘Right from the start, Celia was sniffing around, asking questions.’
‘Yeah, she’s worried, but that’s —’
‘I ’m worried. This little girl’s using you. I sussed Zoe from the first day we got here. She’s out to get her thrills and give Mummy the shits and have something to boast about to her little princess friends at school. What I did in my summer holidays: I fucked a wild trashy boy from Sydney.’
‘That is not true.’
‘And when she’s had enough of her little adventure, that girl won’t give a toss what happens to you.’
‘Sheena, don’t talk like that, okay?’
‘You’ve gotta trust me on this. The sooner we get away from here, the better.’
There was a swishing sound from the orchard, and Sheena looked over to see the pale shape of Zoe standing out there, her creamy hair luminous amid the dark rows of fruit trees.
The girl held a rug up in the air as a signal for Kieran to follow her. His face lit up the instant he saw her. There was no denying that look.
Kieran pointed to the plate of sandwiches Sheena had prepared while he was in the shower. ‘Can I have some?’
‘Yeah, der. That’s why I made them.’ Sheena leaned sideways so he could reach past her to the little fold-out table and grab a handful of the food.
‘Thanks. I’m starving,’ he said. ‘Hey – I don’t want to fight with you, Sheena, and I know you’re looking out for me and everything but . . . y’know . . .’
Sheena shrugged. She wasn’t going to argue with him right this second. What could she say? Why don’t you stay here in this festy cabin with your grouchy sister instead of romping away to have sex with that luscious girl?
Once Kieran had disappeared with Zoe into the orchard, Sheena stayed on the front step. She was stuck for a moment, stunned by how different Kieran had sounded, how calm – no, not calm exactly, because his manner was intense and obviously the blood was rushing to his groin and not his head. Maybe resolute was a better word.
*
Zoe loved the way their bodies looked together as they lay on the rug. During the couple of hours they’d been down by the creek tonight, a mass of cloud had filled the sky and the moonlight bounced off it to create a diffused glow, even down in the gully – enough light to appreciate the sight of her white limbs against the caramel colour of his skin.
They were both exhausted, happily. But lovely as this sweet sleepiness felt, they shouldn’t risk falling properly asleep. So, Zoe rolled around to reach into the creek, scoop out a handful of water and splash her face, to wake herself up. When she wriggled back around, she saw Kieran looking at her.
‘What?’ she asked him.
‘What are you thinking about right now?’
‘Why do you keep asking me that?’
‘Because I reckon there’s always something interesting going on in your brain. More interesting than the gloop in my skull.’
She reached across to run her hands through his hair and cradle the back of his head. ‘Don’t say that. It’s a beautiful skull with a beautiful brain inside it.’
He pecked kisses on her wrists like a crazed chicken and she giggled, pulling her hands back.
‘Promise you won’t laugh at me,’ she said, ‘but I have this list in my head – a list of things I want to try.’
‘You mean sex things?’
She jiggled her head, embarrassed, worried the idea of a list sounded goony and childish.
Kieran sat up straighter and announced, mock-earnest, ‘Well, Zoe, I want you to know I will help you work through your list, no matter how long it takes us.’
She adopted the same jokey solemn tone, as if they were research scientists. ‘We need to be methodical.’
‘Fuck, yeah. You can never be too methodical.’
‘And we should revise as we go,’ she added.
‘We certainly should,’ he agreed, and pulled her in close.
Later, as they walked back up from the creek, hand in hand, a shiver went through Zoe.
‘You cold?’ asked Kieran, offering to wrap the rug around her shoulders.
She shook her head. They were dressed again and it was a warm night. She shivered because the connection to him was gripping her so forcefully that she wasn’t sure she could withstand it, or absorb it or whatever she needed to do to avoid exploding into a thousand pieces.
Kieran could see her, the way she’d never realised someone could truly see another person. She could be her whole self with him, without the need to edit bits out, without worrying that bits of her might cause him pain.
She loved hearing Kieran say her name, not just during sex, but all the time. The sound of ‘Zoe’ from his mouth transmitted to every cell of her body as if it were a signal she had been waiting for, without realising she’d been waiting for it.
When the two of them reached the top of the gully, they knew they would have to separate soon – Zoe to pad barefoot into her bedroom and Kieran to continue on to the cabin. Still, they couldn’t bear the idea of saying goodbye. So Kieran swung Zoe off the path, coaxing her to veer away from the house garden and into the orchard.
‘A few minutes, yeah?’ he said. ‘So we can say goodnight properly.’
They laughed and ran, so they were breathless as they kissed. When they came up for air, Zoe flopped down on the ground. Kieran spun himself round between the rows of fruit trees, tipping his fingers gently against the leaves.
‘You’re so lucky to live here,’ he said. ‘I like the way, if you feel like a feed, you can just reach up and grab something.’
‘It’s not always like this. Only for three months. Half the year it’s just grey sticks.’
‘But you know that inside the grey stick trees there’s little tiny peaches waiting to come out,’ he said, and s
hot her a radiant smile.
Kieran suddenly crouched down in front of Zoe and his tone shifted, tentative, intense. ‘One of the things I’ve been thinking about . . . Okay, the thing is, I have been off my face a fair whack of the time since I was thirteen. But since I’ve been on the road with Sheena, it’s like I’m waking up and seeing things for the first time. It’s like – I want to explain this to you . . . I’ve been replaying stuff in my head.’
‘Like what?’
‘Dumb stuff I did, like going to a meeting with bikers, off my face, knowing Mick had a shotgun in the boot. It didn’t rattle me then, but now I’m scared shitless. It’s like now I’m feeling the fear I should have had then. My brain’s catching up with what my body’s been doing. Mental, eh. All out of sync.’
‘Maybe you were out of sync before. But not now.’
Kieran jumped to his feet again, suddenly hyper. ‘The thing is, the thing is . . .’
Zoe reached her arms out to him. ‘Come back.’
But Kieran stayed out of her reach, hopping from foot to foot. ‘Just let me say this, okay. You know I got in trouble with the cops when I was younger?’
‘Yes,’ she said. She was thrilled that he trusted her enough to tell her everything.
‘Well, there’s been some other stuff in the last few months. Then I didn’t show up in court and that means I’m in deeper trouble. And it’s – oh fuck . . .’
He was prowling around, his hands drumming against his thighs as if an electric charge was running down his arms. It looked uncomfortable, distressing. Zoe didn’t want him to suffer for one second ever. She grabbed for his hand, trying to make him be still.
‘Kieran, I don’t care. I trust you, whatever happens.’
‘But I don’t trust myself,’ he said. ‘Because sometimes I only see what’s in front of me. A mate’ll say, “Let’s do this or that, Kieran” and I think why not and I forget the important things and I fuck up and . . .’
This time Zoe succeeded in grabbing his hand. She held it firmly, wanting to absorb some of his distress into her own body. ‘I’m right here.’
‘You are,’ he said, staring at her in disbelief. ‘Why would you want me?’
She pulled him back down to the ground. ‘You’re the most alive person I ever met.’
The rain started a few minutes later and eventually became so heavy they had to clamber to their feet and run, Zoe to the house, Kieran to the cabin, to avoid getting drenched.
When Zoe climbed into the single bed in the room she’d slept in since she was nine months old, her wet hair made the pillow damp.
Celia lay in bed, listening to the rain – light at first, then drumming more firmly on the roof tin. She heard the rasp of the flywire door being closed carefully as Zoe came back into the house, then the scuff of feet along the hall and finally the yielding sound of her daughter’s body settling onto the mattress.
Celia forced herself to conjure up the Reasonable Woman and hear what that serene, unneurotic dame in her diaphanous gown had to say about this situation. Maybe there was no need to consider the sex a big deal. She should be relieved Zoe wasn’t being furtive or secretive. And at least this boy seemed to adore Zoe and would treat her with tenderness, however clumsily. But no – bugger that. The Reasonable Woman could get stuffed. Zoe was too young, too young, too young. She’d only just turned sixteen and this guy was much older in real terms. And she didn’t really know Kieran, who had shown up here barely ten days ago from Christ-knew-where.
It was a mistake Celia should have predicted and stopped. And underneath all the arguments pinging back and forth in her mind – contentions formed into sentences, words threaded together with grammar and logic – there was an ongoing rumble of fear that could not be processed with language. Impermeable to logical thought.
She and Zoe had barely spoken in the past three days. Celia kept rehearsing brief speeches but she didn’t want to misjudge it, afraid she would inspire contempt and be forced to endure the serrated edge in her daughter’s voice. But it turned out the silence was worse, making Zoe seem inaccessible, out of range, even if she was sleeping only a few feet away from her mother. Celia would have to say something. She would have to risk saying the wrong thing.
The heavy downpour through the night settled into steady rain before dawn. Celia hauled herself out of bed and was pulling on work clothes, when Zoe yelled down the hallway. ‘Is it too wet to pick this morning?’
‘Yep. I think so,’ Celia called back.
‘I’ll tell them.’
Celia heard the flywire door thwack shut as Zoe hurried out to let Sheena and Kieran know there would be no work done this morning. This suspension of work wasn’t to spare the pickers. It was to protect the fruit. After heavy rainfall, there was a risk the peaches would take on too much water, and with any handling the skins would split.
Later in the morning, Celia was working in the shed, alone. She should be using a wet day during harvest to catch up on paperwork, but there was no chance she could concentrate on invoices and columns of numbers. To o agitated to keep still, she zigzagged around the place, sweeping, fiddling with the gear, scrabbling for ways to keep her body and mind occupied.
Close to midday, she heard the squelch of car tyres on the wet driveway and emerged from the shed to see Joe pull up.
‘Hi,’ he said as he stepped out of the driver’s side, his shirt immediately speckled with rain.
‘Come in out of the weather,’ said Celia.
‘I quite like being out in this.’ He smiled, spreading his arms out and turning slowly to get his shirt evenly wet. Then he tipped his head back to offer his face to the rain. ‘I spend most of my waking hours in offices. So, this is – y’know . . .’
Celia smiled her understanding. She had always avoided jobs stuck in offices – all her life, long before Marcus was killed – and now she couldn’t imagine herself living an indoor existence.
‘Your mum’s not up here,’ she explained. ‘We won’t be packing any fruit on a day like this.’
‘I came to see you,’ said Joe. ‘Is Zoe around?’
Celia shook her head. She suspected Zoe had taken Kieran down to the old woolshed so they could avoid the rain. And avoid her.
Joe walked over to join Celia under the awning of the packing shed. ‘So, I talked to a bloke I know in Sydney. A cop. Kieran was in some trouble as a juvenile.’
‘He’s legally an adult now so . . .’
‘And as an adult, there are a couple of warrants out on him.’
Celia forced herself to match Joe’s measured tone. ‘Warrants for what?’
‘Minor stuff, mostly. A break and enter. Story is he got caught up with some nasty characters and police want to talk to him about a couple of more serious matters. There’s one robbery where a security guard was assaulted, I gather.’
‘Oh my God, Joe.’
‘Probably the wisest thing is for them to move on. You could suggest they leave now rather than stay for the rest of the pick.’
‘Zoe talks about travelling with them when they move on.’
‘Well, tell her she can’t.’
Celia shrugged, helpless. ‘She’d hate me for it.’
Joe nodded and let a silence go. One of the things she liked about Joe was that he understood so much without Celia having to unpack the whole crate of tangled shit in her head. His other, more unsettling tendency was that he sometimes answered her unspoken thoughts.
‘Kieran seems like a good-hearted kid,’ he said eventually. ‘And obviously Sheena’s trying to straighten him out.’
‘Listen, Joe, I don’t want to destroy this boy. All I’m thinking about is Zoe.’
‘I know you are.’
Joe flicked his head and Celia followed his eye line to see Zoe striding between rows of fruit trees, towards the yard. She was wearing gumboots, with a light-green cotton dress soaked dark green from the rain, her wet hair swept back from her face.
‘Oh, Joe, I don’t know what I s
hould do,’ Celia whispered, as Zoe approached them.
‘Talk to her. That’s the best thing.’
‘Mm.’
‘Do you want me to stay?’ he asked.
‘No. Thanks, but no. In fact, might be better if you head off now.’
‘So Zoe won’t feel we’re colluding?’
‘Yes.’
Joe made the dash through the rain to his car door. ‘I’ll call you later.’
He curled the vehicle round on the gravel, just as Zoe reached the yard. Joe waved extravagantly to her and drove away towards the road.
Zoe swung to face her mother. ‘What were you talking to Joe about?’
‘Listen, sweetheart, I’m going to have to ask Kieran to leave.’
‘I knew it. I knew you’d end up doing this.’
‘He’s wanted by the police.’
‘I know. He told me.’
‘Wanted for robbery. Serious stuff. Someone was assaulted. Did he tell you that?’
Celia could see Zoe was thrown for a second, but then she recovered, with a more defiant edge in her voice. ‘Yes. He told me. Because he trusts me and I trust him. Which you wouldn’t know any fucking thing about. Since you don’t trust me one tiny bit.’
‘I do trust you.’
‘Bullshit. That’s bullshit. Did you sic Joe onto Kieran? To spy on him? That’s disgusting. No, actually, it’s sad. Your life is so dried up, you have to snuffle around in the dirt until you —’
‘You can say as many cruel things to me as you like, Zoe. I have to do what I think is right.’
‘If you make Kieran leave, I’ll go with him.’
‘Please, if you need to have a battle of wills with me, don’t do it about this.’
‘You don’t get it,’ snapped Zoe. ‘It’s not about you. I love Kieran.’ She flashed a smile – invincible, as if this were unanswerable proof of her love for the boy. ‘Me and Kieran’ll be back up here to work once the rain stops, okay?’
