by Karen Wood
‘Yes,’ she said, trying to sound certain. Of course he would have. There’d been a card from him with no stamp on the envelope – so how else did it appear on her side table at the hospital? ‘More often than you did,’ she spat.
It was a low blow and she knew it. But she continued anyway. ‘He’s my boyfriend and you can’t stop me from seeing him.’
‘I can if I send you to your mother’s. It’s what she wants anyway. Pass me the phone and I’ll ring her now,’ he said, holding his hand out to Mike.
Mike looked torn. His eyes played ping-pong between the two of them. Zoe glared at him. Her father smashed his fist on the table, sending his half-full stubby rolling across the table. Amber liquid gushed everywhere. ‘MIKE!” he bellowed, scooping up the bottle.
Mike jumped up and snatched for the wall phone. ‘Sorry, Sis,’ he mumbled as he passed it to Dad.
‘I can’t believe this,’ she said, her voice getting squeaky. ‘I’ve woken up in the Stone Age.’
‘You’ve woken up in the real world, Zoe. This farm does not run itself and nor does this house.’
‘But why only housework?’ she argued. ‘And why only me? Why doesn’t Mike have to do some?’
‘You just never stop arguing, do you? You’re still recovering from a serious concussion, Zoe. You need to settle down and take it easy. Now, it’s do as I say, or go to your mother’s.’ He stood, pushed his chair back, scraping it across the floor with a horrible grinding noise, and then stalked out of the kitchen. He slammed the door on his way out and it felt as though her head was jammed in it.
Zoe’s lungs squeezed tight inside her chest and her breath came in short rasps. She stood half keeled over with her eyes closed, trying to get her breath back.
‘You okay?’ Mike sounded concerned. He put his hand on her shoulder and guided her back to her chair.
She sat sobbing, trying to count her breaths in and out. ‘What is with him, Mike? He’s being so horrible.’
They both sat there, in the wake of their father’s anger. When he eventually spoke, Mike’s voice was low and careful. ‘He’s been wound up something fierce the whole time you’ve been in hospital. He’s really upset about . . .’ He broke off mid-sentence.
’It’s about Mum, isn’t it,’ she said.
‘She’s on at him to settle. She wants half the farm.’
‘She’s such a cow,’ said Zoe.
‘No, she’s not.’ He went to say something else but stalled, as though changing his mind. ‘She wants to buy a house with Phil and she needs the money. She’s entitled to it.’
‘But she’s going to kick us out of our home.’
‘She lost hers, she reckons.’ Mike shrugged. ‘And your behaviour doesn’t help.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘You’ve just gone all stupid since you started going out with that Scott guy.’
‘Why is everyone so down on Scotty all of a sudden?’
‘Because he’s an idiot. He’s an accident waiting to happen. Or in this case, an accident that’s already happened.’
‘He blames Scotty for my accident?’
Mike shook his head. ‘You’ve really lost Dad’s trust, Zoe.’
‘Why? What did I do wrong? I always work my tail off around here.’
The corner of Mike’s mouth pulled to one side and he gave her an uncertain frown. ‘Another lot of cattle went missing on your watch, Zoe. He’s really cut up about that too.’
‘He blames me for the bullocks going missing?’
Mike didn’t answer.
‘What?’ This was just crazy. Zoe did like playing up and partying with Scotty, but she always took the farm seriously. ‘No way would we have done anything stupid,’ she said adamantly.
‘Never happens when me and Dad muster.’ Mike shrugged. ‘The way you’ve been acting lately, you could have done anything.’
‘What are you trying to say?’ she pressed. As she spoke, she recalled the photos she had been looking at on Facebook. So what? Sure, she played up a bit, but not when Dad or Mike were around to see, not when she was working on the farm.
‘Remember what idiots you both were at the last bush festival?’
‘No.’
Mike shook his head. ‘Selective memory, Zoe.’
Zoe sat there puzzled, and then it struck her. ‘Oh that?’ She scoffed and switched to a lighter tone. ‘Come on, Mike, we were just having a bit of fun.’
Zoe ran across the dark festival grounds to find Scotty, with Frankie darting along at her feet. There were horse trucks everywhere and people sat in small mobs around their campfires, boiling billies and cooking damper in camp ovens. Horses whinnying, cattle crooning and dogs barking made a background to friendly banter and laughter.
She found Scotty at the yards helping his father unload cattle. He called out. ‘See you at the campfire in a while.’
She nodded, whistled up Frankie and set off to find Mike, buying two hot chocolates on the way.
Mike and his friend Josh had set up old camp chairs around a big communal fire, and were admiring a huge steel basket, some remnant piece of engineering from the local coal mines. It had been filled with logs and tree stumps, and the fire now radiated heat into the crisp valley air.
There were other people too. Tahnee Rae was from Zoe’s school, although in a year above her. She sat with Samantha and Tracey, her friends who she barrel-raced with. Also other boys; Scotty’s older brother Ryan sat with a beer balanced on one of his knees. He nodded to her without smiling. Next to him was Brett, another regular at these bush festivals.
Zoe dragged her swag over and settled across from them. ‘Lie down,’ she motioned to Frankie and he rested his chin in her lap. The last hues of daylight dimmed above the silhouettes of the surrounding mountain ranges, and darkness descended.
Finally Scotty stepped into the glow of the firelight, freshly showered, with slicked-back hair and clean clothes.
‘Drink?’ She made room for him on the swag by pushing Frankie over and held the now-lukewarm chocolate up to him.
‘Thanks.’ He took the cup and sat cross-legged next to her.
‘Cattle unload okay?’
He nodded, as he fumbled around with his free hand in his coat pocket.
Away from the fire several men started cracking stock-whips into the muttering of campfire sounds, and everyone who gathered at the fire watched on appreciatively.
‘You can crack a whip better than that,’ she said.
Scotty shrugged. ‘We’ll find out tomorrow, won’t we?’ He pulled a small flask-shaped bottle from his pocket and began uncapping it. ‘I reckon this will taste better with a dash of rum,’ he said, grinning sideways. He began pouring it into her hot chocolate.
Zoe stared at the tea-coloured liquid sloshing into her cup. ‘Hey, whoa,’ she said, quietly but forcefully. She put her hand over her cup. ‘That’s too much,’ she whispered.
Scotty sloshed some into his own cup. ‘It’ll warm you up.’ He gave her a mischievous smile and Zoe noticed the bottle was more than half empty already. ‘Come on, Zo-Zo, live a little,’ he said.
She took a gulp and it nearly stripped the skin off the inside of her mouth. Fire flared through the back of her nostrils. ‘Holy mother of moo cows.’ She exhaled a long, raspy breath. ‘Where did you get that?’
He grinned. ‘Ryan got it for me.’
Of course. A lot of the younger kids asked Ryan to buy alcohol for them. From across the fire, he gave her a knowing smirk.
Scotty took another sip, but Zoe surreptitiously tipped hers out when Scotty wasn’t looking. She shuffled around and stretched out onto her tummy, resting her chin in her hands and staring across the fire. Her eyes settled on Josh.
So, he was back after three years away. Mike must be happy. The pair of them used to spend hours locked away obsessing over electro-mechanical gadgetry. They’d tried to build a robot once. Zoe couldn’t think of anything more boring. He was really tall now. On the way out here, she had noticed that
his head nearly touched the roof of the car.
Their eyes suddenly met and he gave her a friendly wink. Without thinking, she smiled back.
Scotty didn’t miss it. ‘That Josh guy just winked at you,’ he said, as he stretched out beside her.
‘I’ve known him for years,’ she said. ‘He’s one of Mike’s old friends.’
‘Does he think he has a chance with you or something?’ Scotty’s voice was embarrassingly loud.
Zoe looked across the fire to Josh who was now talking to Tahnee. ‘A serial super-nerd. Trust me, he’s not my type.’ She shuffled closer to Scotty and bumped him with her shoulder. ‘You are.’
The sound of stockwhips started up again. Scotty drained the rest of his cup and handed it to Zoe. ‘Hold this for me?’
He stood and walked to his friend, Brett, who was sitting near Josh. ‘Can I borrow your whip?’ Brett nodded and Scotty stooped to pick it up. He rolled the handle around in his hand, testing the grip for a moment, and then sent the fall out in front of him, checking the length. He pulled it back and snapped it lightly a couple of times and then nodded to Zoe.
‘Hey, not around here,’ said Josh. He gestured towards the outside of the fire circle with his head. ‘Take it over there.’
Scotty ignored him. ‘Hold it up,’ he said to Zoe, eyeballing the empty cup.
Both Josh and Mike looked annoyed. Scotty looked over-confident, with his feet spread and a defiant look on his face. ‘Hold it up,’ he repeated slowly and Zoe noticed his boots shift slightly in the dirt.
Everyone was watching and she didn’t want to say no to him in front of an audience. So she stood slowly, shifting her gaze from Josh and her brother to her boyfriend, with loyalties pulling her in different directions. The taste of rum still lingered in her mouth as she stood and held the cup out. She had done this for Scotty several times and he had never missed, but tonight she felt vaguely uneasy about the level in that bottle he had just shoved into his pocket.
Scotty whirled the whip over his head, making everyone around the fire duck. Zoe gritted her teeth and stayed as still as possible. Her face tightened into a grimace. With a seemingly gentle flick of his elbow and wrist, Scotty changed the direction of flow in the whip and sent a loop running down the line of the fall. It cracked loudly and perfectly on the cup, cutting it in two. The sound of it echoed like a gunshot across the grounds.
There was a collective gasp around the fire as a chunk of white Styrofoam fluttered to the ground. Zoe grinned with relief. Brett and Ryan both clapped briefly.
Josh spoke again. ‘Hey, mate, do you mind taking that away from the fire?’
Scotty exhaled slowly through his teeth. He turned, sneered at him and began whirling the whip around his head again.
Josh and Mike both muttered under their breaths. Scotty brought the whip down and cracked it on the edge of a large burning log that glowed on the fire. It snapped a chunk of red off the end, sending it into the air accompanied by a small shower of sparks.
While everyone yelled in complaint and shielded themselves from the sparks, Scotty took Zoe by the hand and led her away. ‘Thanks,’ he said to Brett, as he tossed the whip back to him.
‘Did you really have to do that?’ asked Zoe, when they got to a quiet spot near the cattle yards.
‘Yeah, I did. That guy’s a tosser.’
Zoe leaned in and gave him a long, lingering kiss on the lips. He smelled great, all clean with a hint of some sort of soap or aftershave. He kissed her back for a while and then he pulled away with a finishing-off, that’s-the-last-of-it kind of peck.
‘I’m turning in,’ he said, stepping away.
Zoe watched him walk back towards his truck. She deliberated whether to rejoin the others at the fire and, deciding it would be too awkward, turned and headed for her swag.
5
Zoe had terrible dreams that night – of wrestling anaconda-like vacuum-cleaner hoses and suffocating under mountains of smelly laundry, all through the stench of burnt dinners and household disinfectant. She woke the next day in a cold sweat.
She had sent Caitlin and Scotty messages the previous night to let them know she was home and in a major crisis. She eagerly checked her phone for replies. Nothing. Talk about out of sight out of mind. She felt a certain crankiness burr up inside her, as she switched to plan B. Aunty Jen. Dad’s sister and her husband Fred lived in the next valley.
She’d be damned if she was going to stay indoors and be some subservient little woman while the men of the house went out and did all the fun stuff.
Zoe let Dad and Mike finish breakfast and then dutifully washed their dishes while they pulled on their boots and disappeared outside. When they were well out of range, she threw some clothes into a small pack and walked two kilometres down the road to the bus stop.
A few Ks later, as the bus veered around a bend and onto a crunchy gravel road, Jenny and Fred’s place appeared – an old timber home, painted a soft yellow colour. Jen’s show horses grazed in the smaller front paddocks. In the hills beyond, cattle lay under shade trees.
‘Thought you’d turn up sooner or later,’ said Jen, holding the flyscreen door open. Tall and slim, she wore jeans and an old hand-knitted jumper.
Zoe stood with her bag over her shoulder. ‘He’s such a bastard.’
Jen opened the door wider. ‘Come in.’
Zoe kicked off her boots, flinging them into the pile by the front door and followed Jen inside.
‘I’ll get you a cup of tea,’ said her aunt, disappearing into the kitchen.
A cup of tea fixed everything according to her. Sometimes Zoe wondered if boiling the kettle was a coping mechanism. Moments later Jen emerged with a tray loaded with cups, tea things and a plate of biscuits that Zoe knew without trying would be stale. They always were.
‘He’s just no good at all the girl stuff,’ Jen said, when she had heard Zoe’s story. ‘I’m his sister, so I know. Why do reckon your mum left?’
‘He wants me to go and live with her.’
‘That’s your mother’s idea, not his.’
‘He’s going along with it.’
‘You’re making it easy for him to do that,’ she said, echoing Mike’s sentiments in a way that made Zoe wonder if they’d all been talking about this while she was in hospital.
‘How?’ she asked, exasperated. ‘I can’t even remember the muster. Did I really stuff it up that badly?’
‘It’s not just the muster, Zoe. It’s your behaviour. Your school marks are way down and you’re always in trouble. He’s got more to think about than running down to the school or the neighbour’s or the local shops to sort out your latest stupid thing.’
‘What did I do at the local shops?’
Jen raised her eyebrows. ‘Trolley races?’
‘Oh yeah.’ She’d crashed hers into some old pensioner’s car.
‘And Archie says there were twelve bullocks missing from that last muster. Can you remember anything about it, Zoe? Can you remember counting them off the lease? Could they still be up in the back hills? It’s pretty easy for cattle to hide up there.’
Zoe shook her head, completely blank. ‘I can remember riding out with Caitlin and Scotty and after that, nothing. I don’t remember anything.’
Jen sighed.
Zoe picked at her biscuit without eating it.
‘Finish your tea,’ said Jen kindly. ‘You didn’t tell your dad you were coming here, did you?’
Zoe shook her head, and Jen sighed even harder. ‘I’ll let him know where you are.’
Zoe sat curled up at the back of Fred’s hayshed among the lucerne bales, trying to process things. Her head tumbled with emotions. Guilt at losing the cattle. Anger at being traded off like a piece of livestock. Envy of her dad’s easy relationship with Mike. Loss of her dad’s trust and seemingly his heart. That’s what hurt the most. He was icing her out, just the way he’d done with Mum. For the first time ever she felt some empathy with her.
The past few w
eeks had shot her life to pieces. Her head was like a road sign on some isolated country road, with fifty bullet holes put through it.
She pulled out her phone again to check for replies from Scotty and Caitlin. She needed to ask them what had happened at the muster. Nothing. Where were they? Normally they checked their messages all the time. Surely one of them would answer, even if the other was off the air or had lost their phone? Did they even know she was out of hospital?
As her thoughts unravelled, she heard horses nickering in the stables nearby. She peered in through the large timber gate. Auntie Jen sat on a weedy young colt with her feet hanging down well below its belly. The horse lurched through the soft wood shavings, bouncing into walls and then bunny-hopping back out into the arena. When Jen saw Zoe she pointed to an older horse that was saddled and waiting outside the arena. ‘Jump on Turtle and come for a ride,’ she said, opening the gate to the arena. ‘I was going to move some cattle on him. But I may as well ride this one.’
Zoe took the big red horse by the reins, unsure if she could get on with her arm in the bandage. She could tell by looking at Turtle that he was an old workhorse, and she hoped that his name accurately reflected his nature. She pulled the reins over his neck and put her foot in the stirrup. It was easy enough to push off the ground and pull herself up with one hand. She swung her leg over and sat her bum in the saddle. It felt good, like home. After the crazy mixed-up days she’d been having, riding would be an enormous relief.
‘Go ahead and get the gate,’ said Jen as they rode across the home yard.
Zoe swung it open and let Jen kick her youngster through. ‘Don’t go galloping off on me, this fella’s still pretty raw,’ said Jen, the words no sooner out of her mouth than the colt shied violently.
In the next paddock, they walked the horses up a steep hill, feeling them press their shoulders into the climb and push with their hind legs. The young colt blew heavily.
As they rode further and further from the house, the vastness and sense of freedom had a wonderfully cleansing effect on Zoe’s head. All that air and sun and sky seemed to just untangle the knots inside her. It made the world seem less complicated. Turtle’s stride swung beneath her, and she let the stress billow out of her chest.
