Elsa's Stand

by Cathryn Hein

  Jack stepped out of his ute and glanced around as he gave Daisy a last reassuring stroke that was more for himself than the dog. Thanks to its goldrush-era buildings and unusually wide streets, a legacy of the days when bullock trains ruled the roads and masses of goods and wealth flowed to and from the goldfields, even Jack had to admit Wirralong was an attractive town.

  Something felt different from his last visit though. The street seemed less shabby, cleaner and livelier. Fewer shops were empty, and those that were open had shiny windows and fresh displays. Some of the bull-nosed verandahs had been painted in heritage colours, and raised flower beds had been installed in front of the town’s imposing Renaissance revival-inspired post office. There was even an up-market looking restaurant, florist and a funny-sounding business called Wedding Belles.

  He released an unimpressed snort. It’d take a lot more than a bit of paint and a few flowers for him to ever like the place.

  From his lofty height, Jack could easily see above the salon’s tinted windows to inside. It didn’t look overly busy and men’s cuts took no time. Surely they could squeeze him in?

  He pushed open the door and blinked at the noise and perfumed air.

  Country rock music competed with the blast of a hair dryer and girly giggling. A leggy redhead with her hair piled in a messy topknot and wielding a fat brush and dryer stood behind the chair of a long-haired blonde. Another blonde sat alongside, giggling as she took selfies on her phone. A small boy occupied a chair facing the other wall and another bank of mirrors, his focus intent on the device in his hands.

  The giggly blonde whirled her chair round, grin still in place. A grin that faded quickly to a round-mouthed ‘O’ then an unrestrained gawp as she took Jack in.

  The redhead looked up from her styling and stilled. Then she smiled before leaning close to her client to mutter something. With a pat on the girl’s shoulder, she set aside the dryer and approached, both blondes watching with boggled gazes.

  ‘Can I help you?’ The redhead had a nice voice, friendly, like her smile.

  ‘Any chance of a haircut?’

  ‘Now? Sorry, I’m flat out.’ Her mouth twisted in apology as she indicated the blondes and boy. ‘Wedding party. I can fit you in on Monday, if you want to come back then.’ She flipped over a page in her appointment book and regarded him expectantly.

  Shit.

  Jack remained silent as he scanned the salon, trying to figure a way through this. On the other side of the boy was a cream-coloured, old-fashioned barber’s chair, a trolley parked alongside.

  ‘You have clippers?’

  ‘Of course, but … Hey, hang on.’

  Jack strode past the counter, his focus on the trolley. The boy looked up from his game and did a double-take as he clocked Jack’s size. Jack nodded hello, plucked a set of clippers from the trolley and inspected the comb. He had no idea what he was looking at but figured the clippers would be in good working order. It was a hairdresser’s after all.

  He found the ‘on’ switch and gave a satisfied grunt when the clippers whirred efficiently into life. Then he faced the mirror and ran the comb straight through the centre of his hair, leaving an almost bald channel.

  Okay, so he should have checked the settings first. Too late now. He’d have to do his entire head to this length. He’d probably end up looking like a skinhead but at least his hair would be short.

  Arms folded, the redhead leaned against the wall alongside the mirror he was using. ‘What do you think you’re doing?’

  ‘Haircut.’ Jack shaved another strip, the clipped hair falling in hanks across his shoulders. Smart move keeping his T-shirt on and only changing into his suit trousers and patent shoes, or he’d have to waste more time dusting hair off his dress shirt.

  ‘So I see.’

  ‘I’ll pay.’

  She watched him a bit longer then shook her head. ‘Whatever.’ She pushed off the wall and waved a hand at him. ‘Just clean up afterward.’

  The redhead went back to work while Jack continued with his haircut, but their gazes kept catching in the mirrors. His watchful in case she changed her mind and decided to call the police, hers slightly puzzled. After a while her expression relaxed and she seemed more bemused than anything. Probably laughing inside at the hatchet job Jack was doing on his hair.

  Another time Jack might have winked or given her a self-deprecating half-smile, but today wasn’t a day for flirting. That didn’t mean he couldn’t appreciate her attractiveness. She was pretty, really pretty, and blue-eyed like him. Her eyes were brighter though, warm and welcoming where his were the pale blue of deep Antarctic ice. Combined with the golden freckles scattering her skin, she had the fire and sky colouring of a rare dark opal, and was probably just as unattainable. Girls like her didn’t stay single in small towns for long.

  Jack lowered the clippers and ran a hand over the spiky remnants of his hair. He clipped a few more ragged spots and inspected himself in the mirror. The cut was ugly and uneven and looked ridiculous with his long beard.

  He crouched near the boy. ‘Back all right?’

  The boy wrinkled his nose then poked a spot. ‘You missed some there.’

  ‘Huh.’ Jack pursed his lips and bounced the clippers in his palm, before holding them out to the boy. ‘Think you can manage it?’

  ‘Yeah.’ He set his game aside to take the clippers but they were plucked out of his reach.

  ‘I’ll take care of these,’ said the redhead. ‘You,’ she pointed the comb at Jack, ‘stay exactly where you are.’

  With a few deft sweeps she dealt with the untidy bits then swapped the clippers for a small soft brush and dusted hair from the back of his neck and shoulders. Without a word she returned to the blonde.

  Jack straightened from his crouch and flicked at some hair that had fallen on his suit trousers. Catching the redhead’s eye, he nodded. The salon’s stereo chose that moment to switch to Lee Kernaghan’s iconic Australian song “Boys from the Bush”, causing the blondes to nudge one another and break into giggles.

  Jack gave a half-smile. The redhead smiled back.

  Christ on a bicycle, she was pretty.

  He looked quickly at the mirror. With his bushranger beard and shorn head he was a freak. Like something from a bikie gang or seventies hard rock band.

  A quick check of the clock behind the wash basins revealed he still had time. He drew his hand down his thick beard and considered the clippers. With a shrug, he lifted them to his face.

  ‘No!’

  Jack stopped.

  ‘For Pete’s sake,’ said the redhead, snatching the clippers out of his hand and waving them. ‘They’re for hair, not beards.’

  ‘I need a shave.’

  ‘Yes, you do. But I don’t have time to give you one.’

  He stared at her, thinking hard. He had a disposable razor in his duffel bag but he doubted that would get through his beard.

  ‘What?’

  ‘Can I borrow some scissors then?’

  She pinched the bridge of her nose. ‘I’d love to help, I really would, but I have two bridesmaids to get ready and a bride out the back. I just don’t have the time.’

  ‘Neither do I.’

  ‘Really? What’s your hurry?’

  He winced and stared over her head as tightness gripped his chest. There’d been a moment, when she’d smiled, that he’d forgotten what he was here for. Now grief was once more lining his throat with gravel and his heart with stones.

  She studied his face for a long moment, frowning, then her eyes slowly widened before her eyelids shut and her lovely mouth formed a thin line. She stroked her brow and dropped her hand. ‘You’re here for Kate, aren’t you?’

  Jack swallowed and didn’t answer.

  ‘I’m so sorry.’ She touched his forearm and smiled gently. ‘I have beard trimmers.’ She slid open a drawer, pulled out a set of trimmers and placed them on the trolley top, her actions careful as if any sudden move might set him off. Then she
indicated a porcelain shaving bowl. ‘If you need a shave as well …’

  Her kindness and his grief made Jack’s words gruff. ‘A tidy will be enough.’

  ‘Okay.’ She showed him the settings. ‘Start from beneath your chin and work that area first. Your beard’s quite thick, so it might take a couple of goes.’

  ‘I’ll be all right.’

  ‘If you get stuck, just yell, okay?’ She touched his arm again, then thankfully left him to it. Jack wasn’t sure he could stand much more sympathy.

  The beard came off like sheep fleece, dropping to the floor in chunks. Like his hair, it wasn’t the tidiest of jobs, but Jack got through it fast and the result was more designer scruff than bikie. Far from perfect, but another glance at the clock told him he’d run out of time.

  He turned to the redhead. ‘I’ll come back after and clean up.’

  ‘It’s fine. I’ll take care of it.’

  ‘Thanks.’ With a nod at the boy and the two blondes, Jack strode to the counter. He pulled a roll of notes from his front pocket and peeled off two fifties, anchored them under a bottle of hair stuff sitting near the till, and walked out.

  His car was parked in front of the salon, Daisy in the back, wagging her tail in happy greeting. He patted her head as he pulled a folded pale blue shirt from his duffel and shook it out. It was rumpled from the journey but at least it was clean. Hooking the hem of his T-shirt with his thumbs, he dragged it over his head and dumped it.

  An elderly woman threw him a look of disapproval as she passed along the footpath. Jack resisted the urge to curl his lip back at her. He was bare-chested, not naked, and no doubt Wirralong had seen worse in its time.

  He threaded his arms into the shirtsleeves, shrugged the rest on and quickly fastened the buttons. After tucking the ends in to his trousers, he pulled a black and pale blue diagonally striped tie from the duffel and looped it around his neck.

  The ute window was too dusty to show his reflection. Jack stared around then grunted as he remembered the salon’s mirror-tinted windows. A leap out of the gutter and he was bending in front of one, fastening a Windsor with fingers that hadn’t tied one in years but, thankfully, hadn’t forgotten what to do.

  Tie knotted, he straightened and glanced into the salon.

  Both blondes had their chairs swivelled around, eyes on Jack like he was some sort of circus act, the giggly one with her phone up and pointed dead at him. Two other women, one with startling green hair, stood behind them, also staring.

  The redhead stood in the centre aisle, a brush held loosely by her side, her top teeth gripping her bottom lip. Unlike the others, her gaze was soft, as though worried for him.

  Jack gave her another nod of thanks and strode round the car for the driver’s door. Their show was over.

  His was only beginning.

  Chapter Three

  Jack had known it wasn’t going to be the best of days, but he hadn’t expected it to be this bad.

  He arrived at the funeral home to find the car park mostly empty. For a lurching moment he thought he’d misheard the time, that his mum’s service had been and gone and he’d missed saying goodbye one last time. Then he spied Anne, dressed in mourning black for a person she’d felt no love for, her chin lifted righteously, her lips compressed in a mean line, and the anger that had eased in the last few hours came suddenly boiling back.

  ‘Jack,’ she said, trying to stay him on the steps.

  Jack shot her a look so black it had Anne snatching her hand away and clutching her handbag to her belly.

  ‘We’ll talk afterwards, then.’

  He stalked into the chapel without answering. There’d be no talking to his cousin, not after the shit act she’d pulled.

  A quick glance revealed his brother had yet to arrive. Jack reached for his phone, but the sight of his mum’s plain coffin shot a lance of pain through his chest and his arm fell limp to his side. He walked slowly towards the casket and placed his palm on the cool surface.

  A dark-suited staff member stood nearby with his hands behind his back. Jack considered him. The guy looked around Jack’s age, surely too young to have any authority. Anne was at the door talking to a stooped, balding bloke who seemed more the part. As Jack went to interrupt, the bloke stroked Anne’s cheek in a way that was far from funereal.

  He searched for someone else but the staff member was it.

  ‘Can you open the casket?’

  The guy kept his expression smooth even as his gaze flickered over Jack. ‘You’re a relative?’

  ‘Son.’

  His brows lifted, then the guy’s gaze moved past Jack. Anne was hurrying towards them, the stooped bloke on her heels. Jack’s expression narrowed, but this time she wasn’t put off.

  ‘Charles,’ she said, her smile brittle. ‘Everything okay?’

  Charles smiled back politely and gestured towards Jack. ‘This gentleman …’

  Jack glared.

  Charles cleared his throat. ‘Ms. Hargreaves’s son wishes to view inside the casket.’

  Anne recoiled, hand fluttering to her throat. ‘Of course not. It’s sealed.’

  ‘Unseal it,’ said Jack. Even bent forwards, he towered over them. His voice dropped to a low growl, adding to the menace. ‘Or I will.’

  ‘Now, now,’ said Anne’s bloke. ‘No need for that.’

  There was every need. Anne had bullied herself into this situation and if Jack had to resort to bullying her out of it, he would. This was his mum.

  ‘Be reasonable,’ said Anne. ‘It’s been …’ Her face screwed up even further. ‘Days.’

  Jack ignored them both and addressed Charles. ‘Get your boss.’

  Charles’s eyes darted between the parties and settled back on Jack. ‘I won’t be a minute.’

  If it weren’t for the arrival of Angus McNamara, things might have deteriorated further. As it was, after shaking hands with Jack and hearing his request, the solicitor ushered the funeral director aside for a quick word, while Anne and Tony—as Jack discovered her husband was named—fussed and flapped about the inappropriateness of it all, and Jack stared at the door waiting for Jesse to appear.

  Finally, the casket was opened. The funeral director indicated that Jack could approach then stood aside with Charles.

  Though the chapel was already quiet, a deeper hush fell.

  For a moment, Jack couldn’t move. Kate had been dead two weeks. The body lying in the coffin wasn’t her, it was just her shell. His mum, the woman who’d loved and understood him, who’d urged him to chase his own obsession and then dedicated the rest of her life to her own, the woman who laughed and called him Jackie-Jackie, who’d tended his cuts and bruises and made him eat his peas and told him stories of rocks and gems and dreams, was gone.

  He hoped it was to somewhere special, somewhere deserving. A paradise of sapphires and sunshine.

  Carpet muffled his footsteps, but to Jack each tread sounded loud. White satin lined the coffin edges, its overbright shininess somehow inappropriate. As he neared, he caught sight of darker colours—Kate’s clothes—then the waxy flesh of her hands resting quietly on her belly.

  Kate’s head lay on a satin pillow, her dark hair combed and arranged neatly around her face and a far cry from the wild, windswept curls that made up her usual style. Her eyes were closed and her mouth serene, as if she was sleeping. He stroked her forehead and felt only cold skin. No warmth, no mum. A husk.

  But it was her. Kate Hargreaves in death. Christ, he was going to miss her.

  He blinked hard against the hot prickle of tears and dug into his pocket for the small gift he’d brought. The opal was smooth and cool against his palm, almost like her skin. It was one from his claim, a discovery from his first year of digging that he’d souvenired instead of selling, and had polished.

  Jack kept his fist closed as he drew it out, not wanting the others to glimpse what he held. It was a 1.35-carat semi-black opal, a centimetre or so around, and flecked with brilliant green, turquo
ise, sapphire blue, red and orange. The full spectrum.

  Jack had called it his hope because of what it represented. The gem was right on the cusp of a black opal. Beautiful and worth a good amount, but not the legend. Not the elusive stone that could make him a millionaire overnight. Finding it had signalled he was close though, and when he’d told his mum there’d been no mistaking her excitement for him. In the lean years after, whenever he’d despaired and questioned his life’s direction, she’d remind him of this very opal and urged him to keep going. It would come. Take solace from the patient earth. Black opal took millions of years to form. He could give a few of his own in return.

  He had, and, as she predicted, Jack had eventually found his share of black brilliance.

  As Kate had with her sapphires.

  He bent over the coffin, placing his hand once more on her forehead and angling his shoulder to shield her body from sight.

  ‘This is for you, Mum,’ he whispered, and slipped the opal beneath her folded hands, checking it was well hidden. ‘My thanks for your belief in me. And love.’

  He closed his eyes and swallowed hard against his grief, and the wish that he’d had time to find her precious sapphires so he could leave her with one of those too.

  When his emotions were once more under control, he placed a tender kiss on her forehead. ‘I’ll find them again. For you. I promise.’

  He stood guard with Angus while the director resealed the casket, watching the man’s hands closely for any furtive dipping inside, but the director remained professional. With nothing else to do, Jack sat down to wait for whatever else Anne had organised.

  ‘Have you heard from Jesse?’ he asked Angus.

  ‘No. He’s coming though?’

  ‘Last I heard.’

  But that had been a day ago. Jack stared at the doorway, willing his brother to arrive. Music filtered through speakers in the ceiling, a warbling duet. Angus looked up, frowning, then he began to smile, then chuckle.