Opal Dreaming

by Karen Wood

  Grace kept tugging. ‘Pleeease,’ she moaned.

  Jess heard Tom’s voice as he got out of the car.

  ‘I had to bring the dogs out,’ he said. ‘They were driving Annie nuts, howling all night.’

  ‘I’d given up on you,’ said Luke, throwing his arms around Tom’s neck and jumping all over him. ‘Thought you weren’t coming.’

  Tom pushed him off and soon they were wrestling like two puppies, with Filth and Fang leaping on top to join in.

  ‘That is just a little too Brokeback Mountain,’ said Jess.

  ‘No, it’s not,’ said Grace, dragging Jess towards and into the trailer.

  ‘What is wrong?’ asked Jess. She’d never seen Grace so het up.

  Grace made pointing gestures out the door and opened her eyes wide, making Jess guess.

  Jess held her hands up, making her face vacant and questioning.

  Grace screwed her nose up with frustration. ‘Elliot’s here,’ she spat, like an annoyed cat.

  ‘So?’

  Grace rolled her eyes and sighed an agonised sigh.

  ‘Ohhh . . . Elliot,’ said Jess. ‘And?’ She looked at Grace. ‘Oh my God, you kissed him!’

  Grace nodded, wincing.

  Jess threw her hands over her mouth and caught an enormous barrel of laughter before it escaped from her throat. ‘How did that happen?’ she whispered. ‘I thought you hated boys!’

  ‘It happened just before we came out here. I was going to tell you but he said he was coming droving and then he didn’t come and then . . . I was beginning to think it never happened.’

  They stared at each other, hands over their mouths.

  ‘Elliot?’ Jess marvelled. She still couldn’t believe it – Grace and the super geek. She stifled another laugh.

  ‘What’s so funny?’ Grace hissed. ‘You and Luke have been at it all day!’

  ‘Nothing. Nothing’s funny. Does Rosie know?’

  ‘Of course not!’

  Jess broke out laughing. Rosie would be merciless when she found out.

  Grace began frantically rummaging through the whiffy rags strewn over the bunk. ‘I need some clean clothes.’

  ‘You’ve got no hope,’ said Jess.

  ‘Look at me,’ Grace moaned. She was wearing a pair of old trackpants that had holes in the knees, with a Craig Fairley special on top. ‘He looks like someone out of an IT magazine.’

  ‘I’ve got some cut-off jeans that are still clean.’

  ‘Shorts?’

  ‘Sure, come here.’ Jess patted her hands over Grace’s hips and then her bum. ‘Hmmm . . .’

  ‘Now who’s Brokeback Mountain?’ said Grace impatiently.

  ‘We need Rosie,’ said Jess.

  ‘No way.’

  ‘She’s your only hope.’

  ‘No! ’

  ‘Yes!’

  Jess leapt out of the trailer. Beyond the fire, Luke and Tom were trying to take down Lawson, who rambled about like King Kong with two monkeys clinging to him, two wolves growling at his heels. A body went sailing across the shadows and into a tree; she wasn’t sure if it was Luke or Tom. She ran around to the water tanks on the back of the truck and found Rosie with her hair wrapped in a towel, brushing her teeth into a bucket.

  She pulled her brush from her mouth when she saw Jess. ‘Whose car was that?’

  ‘Rosie!’ Jess grabbed her by the arm and began dragging her into the trailer. ‘Huge crisis, in the trailer, quick!’

  ‘Hey!’ said Rosie, ‘at least let me rinse!’

  ‘No time,’ said Jess, pulling her along. ‘Grace needs a big sister!’

  Within fifteen minutes, through quick explanations, gasps and whispered tell-alls, Rosie had Grace into a pair of clean jeans, pilfered from the washing nets in the back of the truck, a skin-tight black cotton singlet and one of Lindy’s country-brand caps with a ponytail poking out the back. She was sponged, deodorised, cleansed and toned. Her teeth were brushed and her toenails painted – they decided bare feet would look casually confident, girly and earthy. Men found feet sexy, Rosie assured them, especially with painted toenails. She had read about it in a magazine.

  ‘As if he’s even gonna see my feet,’ complained Grace. ‘It’s dark!’

  ‘Don’t be such a sad loser,’ said Rosie, applying a second coating of polish. She was in her element. ‘Do you want to look hot or not?’

  Rosie screwed the lid back on the bottle and pulled Grace up onto her feet.

  Jess let out a long, breezy wolfwhistle. ‘Nice work, Rosie!’

  With her tanned skin, blonde hair and dark eyes, Grace was absolutely gorgeous.

  ‘One more thing,’ said Rosie, reaching into her makeup bag and pulling out some lip gloss. ‘Strawberry or caramel?’

  ‘He strikes me as more of the Juicyfruit type,’ Shara commented from the top bunk.

  ‘Oh no,’ Grace groaned.

  ‘Go for the strawberry,’ said Jess quickly. ‘It’s high in vitamin C . . . and anti-oxidants.’

  Grace screwed up her face at her.

  Jess shrugged. ‘You don’t want spongy gums and bleeding teeth when you’re kissing a guy, believe me.’

  ‘What?’ said Rosie, looking disgusted.

  ‘Nothing, forget it.’

  Grace smiled nervously. ‘Do I look okay?’

  ‘More than okay,’ said Jess, shoving her towards the doorway. ‘Don’t you go near Luke looking like that,’ she teased.

  ‘Look at your boobs,’ said Rosie. ‘When did they happen?’

  Grace immediately reached for the flannie.

  ‘No way,’ said Rosie, snatching it and shoving Grace towards the door. ‘Now, go get him.’

  Grace stumbled out of the trailer and into the dim lamp over the trailer door, Jess and Rosie close behind her. On the other side of the fire, Lawson, Luke and Tom walked back to the camp, talking and laughing loudly. They all saw Grace at the same time and shut up.

  ‘Err, hi,’ said Grace, turning and trying to step back into the trailer. Rosie and Jess blocked her path and not-very-subtly herded her towards the fire. Elliot sat neatly on a tree stump, blinking through his glasses at something electronic and beeping in his hands.

  ‘Hi, Elliot,’ said Rosie loudly.

  ‘Hi,’ said Elliot, without lifting his eyes.

  ‘Good drive out here?’

  ‘Ummm . . . yes.’

  Rosie shoved Grace at him. Grace pushed her off. ‘Okay, okay.’ She sat down next to him, looking grumpy.

  ‘They’re making me sit next to you,’ she said with her arms folded, staring away from him.

  ‘I know,’ Elliott said, without looking up from his gadget.

  ‘Hi, Rosie!’ It was Tom.

  Rosie spun around. ‘Oh my God, my hair’s not done!’ she shrieked and raced back into the trailer, leaving him looking confused.

  King Kong came back from the wilds of the water trough and scooped Lindy into his arms, dancing around the fire with her.

  Luke looked across the camp, first at Grace and Elliot, then at Lawson and Lindy, then at Tom hovering outside the trailer door. ‘Have I missed something?’

  Stan started whistling ‘Love Is in the Air’, walked over to Mrs Arnold and tried to put his arm around her waist. She raised her frying pan at him. ‘Bugger off, Stan.’

  ‘Oh, come on, old girl, you used to love dancing.’

  Mrs Arnold dropped her pan and rolled her eyes.

  ‘Woohoo!’ said Rosie, as she stepped out of the trailer, reinvented, and saw her parents dancing. ‘Go for it, big daddy-o!’

  Stan lifted an arm above his wife’s head and sent her into a twirl.

  ‘Let’s drink a toast to Harry,’ said Lawson.

  The whole campsite came to a screaming halt. The Arnolds stopped dancing, the music stopped and everybody glared at Lawson.

  ‘What?’ said Lawson. ‘It’s a good and proper use for alcohol.’

  ‘And cooking’s not?’ said Mrs Arnold, incredulous.

/>   ‘Not if you don’t hide it properly.’ He grinned and pulled a small clay bottle from the dogbox in the trailer. ‘Find a mug.’

  ‘The bloody hide of it,’ said Mrs Arnold.

  It was only a small bottle, and it was by no means full, but Lawson managed to deal a dribble into each mug. Ryan politely declined, filling his cup instead with some hot coffee. They raised their odd assortment of plastic, tin and aluminium cups and banged them all together, celebrating the man who had brought them all there together like a big family, bonded by the horses, the cattle, the dust and the liquid that burned down their throats.

  A breeze blew over the fire, sending sparks into the air like little fireworks. It blew the hair up off Jess’s neck.

  Here’s to you, Harry.

  She sat by the fire, snuggled into Luke’s lap, dogs by her feet, listening to the soft guitar, the crickets, the cattle, smelling smoke and eucalyptus, watching the fire and the faces of her friends glowing around it. She couldn’t remember feeling more happy and alive.

  Luke’s fingers ran absent-mindedly up and down her arm and in soft little circles. His chest rose slowly with each breath. Jess closed her eyes and breathed in time with him, letting his body rock her gently to sleep.

  27

  THE NEXT MORNING, Jess flipped some eggs over, gave them a quick shake around the pan and tipped them onto Lindy’s plate.

  ‘Will you come and see us at Coachwood Crossing, Lindy?’ she asked.

  ‘Sure will, it sounds beautiful,’ answered Lindy. ‘Just gotta get these cattle through the sales and sort out a few things at home. What’s up ahead for you?

  ‘School.’ Jess cracked some more eggs into the pan. ‘I’m a bit of a nerd, really, but don’t tell anyone.’

  ‘Good girl,’ said Lindy. ‘I spent four years at uni – best thing I ever did.’ She grabbed a chunk of bread off the table and poured tomato sauce over her eggs. ‘If you want some holiday work at Longwood, come and see me, hey?’

  ‘Sure, thanks,’ said Jess.

  Lindy nodded over towards the ute. Three lanky pairs of legs – Tom’s, Elliot’s and Luke’s – hung out of the open bonnet. It looked like an old yellow dinosaur getting its teeth done, especially next to Tom’s late-model sleek black Holden. ‘I gave Luke that old ute. He’s in heaven.’ As Lindy walked away, she said, ‘Sorry, Jess, but there’s another woman in his life now.’

  Luke pulled his head out from under the bonnet and turned around, looking for Jess. He waved her over, his grin so wide it nearly split his head in half. ‘Come and look,’ he said excitedly. ‘It’s a 1973 HQ, totally original. It even has a miles-per-hour speedo!’

  He leaned into the cabin. ‘The cigarette lighter still works!’

  ‘Great, I can charge my mobile,’ said Jess.

  Luke poked his head back out, frowned briefly, then grinned again. ‘I can’t believe it’s mine! Lindy gave it to me for wages.’

  ‘He would’ve loved you to have it.’ Jess stuck her head in the cabin. ‘Shame the seats are all ripped.’

  ‘Yeah, but they’re bench seats.’ Luke beamed, and Jess wondered why that was so good. ‘I’ll fix ’em up and put covers over them. I’ll get her looking like new.’ He ran his hand lovingly over the cracked dashboard. ‘Come and see under the bonnet,’ he said, dragging her around to the front.

  Tom was up to his armpits in the car’s gizzards. ‘Think she needs uni joints. Rats’ve chewed holes in the washer bottle,’ he said without raising his head.

  ‘Most of this stuff’s computerised these days,’ said Elliot.

  Jess listened to them talk excitedly about car bits that she’d never heard of until she eventually tuned out and found herself ogling Luke’s strong forearms under his rolled-up sleeves.

  He is so gorgeous and he is so mine.

  He turned to her suddenly. ‘Let’s go driving out west for a few days. Lawson doesn’t need me once we get the cattle into the saleyards, and TAFE’s not back for another week.’

  Jess immediately imagined sitting in the front of the ute with Luke, talking and laughing, and watching the endless mulga country float by. Camping in swags under the stars and kissing him endlessly. She was more than tempted, but reality broke back in. ‘I can’t.’

  ‘Why not?’

  ‘I have to go back and see Opal,’ she said. ‘I need to sort her out, one way or the other.’

  He put his arms around her and sighed a frustrated sigh. ‘But I want you all to myself.’

  ‘I’ve also got school and parents who would totally freak.’

  ‘Oh yeah, I forget about that sort of thing.’

  Jess put her arms around his waist. They had been together only days and yet she couldn’t imagine being away from him ever again. Out here she was a part of his day-to-day life; they ate every meal together. They were wild and free – except for Mrs Arnold. Back home he would work all day while she was at school. He would seem like such an adult, and she would feel like such a schoolkid.

  ‘I’ll drive you back to the station.’

  ‘No, you won’t,’ said Mrs Arnold, walking up behind them with the large frying pan in her hand.

  Jess and Luke both groaned.

  Later that afternoon, the cattle were in a holding paddock near the saleyards, and the entire droving outfit was packed up and ready to head back to Blakely Downs. Luke was still messing about under the bonnet of the ute with Tom, topping up oil and water. Being unregistered, he planned to drive back along the stock route to the station, deeming the lack of a driver’s side door to be too much of a ‘cop magnet’ to take it on the highway. Elliot sat in the passenger seat of Tom’s ute, quietly thumbing away at his beeping gadget while he waited.

  Jess climbed into the back seat of Mrs Arnold’s LandCruiser and squeezed in next to Shara.

  Mrs Arnold started the engine and rolled slowly towards the gooseneck trailer. The tailgate was down, ready for loading the horses; by the cabin, Stan filled the diesel tanks from jerry cans. Nearby, Bob stood barefoot with five horses in halters behind him, like a bunch of balloons. The cuffs of his jeans were frayed where they dragged on the ground, his gnarly feet so covered in dust it was hard to know where the man ended and the earth began. Lawson took Marnie from him, led her to the ramp and both man and horse disappeared into the back of the trailer for a moment.

  Jess leaned out the window. ‘See ya, Bob!’

  Bob walked towards the four-wheel drive and pulled something out of his pocket. ‘Happy birthday, Jessy.’

  Jess took the small ball of grimy blue cloth, like a rag cut from an old T-shirt. A piece of string held it closed. She could feel something lumpy inside it.

  ‘Find her spirit, catch it, and take it back to her,’ Bob said softly.

  ‘Thanks,’ she said, staring at the bundle in her hands.

  ‘You let me know when you wanna sell that old stockhorse.’

  Jess smiled. ‘You’ll be waiting a while.’

  ‘See you back at the station, ay.’

  Mrs Arnold let the brake off and they began to roll away.

  In the car, Jess rolled the rag about in her hands, puzzled.

  ‘What is it?’ asked Shara, nodding at the small bundle. ‘Open it.’

  Jess began to pick at the string until it slipped over the rag and fell away. Then she unrolled it. Inside was a short stump of mulga wood shaped like a horse. A lumpy knot in the timber created the shape of the shoulder perfectly and, from that, the branch arched into a neck. Where the stick had snapped off the tree, the splintered timber formed the shape of two ears and a horse’s head.

  She turned it over, ran her finger along the neck and touched three teeny-weeny diamonds carved into its shoulder.

  ‘Did Bob make that for you?’ asked Shara, staring over her shoulder.

  ‘It’s Opal,’ said Jess, still examining it closely and noticing its long mane, like that of a mature horse rather than a foal. ‘He must have made it.’ She twisted around and looked through the billows of
dust behind the car.

  Bob fastened the gate. Behind him the low hills rolled away, and the mulga trees shimmered in the unrelenting sun.

  Jess pushed the carving into her pocket and pulled out the Yowah nuts.

  ‘Can we stop at a post office, Mrs A?’

  An hour or so along the highway, Mrs Arnold pulled into a service station and cut the engine. Jess jumped down to stretch her legs, her friends tumbling out behind her.

  ‘Post office is over the road,’ said Mrs Arnold, jabbing her thumb over her shoulder, as she walked to the bowser.

  Jess pulled her pack over her shoulder and with the nuts in her hand, ran across the road. Five minutes later, she emerged from the small timber building with a small padded envelope, addressed to David Rawlins, care of Yowah Post Office.

  Jess lifted the lid on the postbox, inserted the small parcel and pushed the chute down again. ‘Enjoy your bad-luck stones, Dave.’ Briskly brushing her hands together, she headed back to the servo.

  As she crossed the road, her phone buzzed in her pocket. ‘Hey! There must be mobile reception around here,’ she said, tearing it out.

  ‘Yep,’ said Mrs Arnold, pointing to two satellite towers on a nearby hill as she put the pump handle back onto the bowser.

  Jess flipped it open and gasped as she saw it light up in her hand. ‘It’s back from the dead!’

  There were four messages. She leaned against the four-wheel drive and scrolled through them while the others went into the shop for ice-creams. The first was from the day before.

  BDowns: the fillys taken a bad turn, pls contact

  station.

  Jess felt a sudden heaviness as she realised the rest of the messages were not going to be good. She scrolled to the next one with a weighty thumb.

  BDowns: ring urgently – need permission.

  Twelve hours ago? She’s already dead.

  Guilt consumed her. She’d been gallivanting around out here while Opal had been dying. She should never have left her.

  Jess couldn’t help it; she sobbed.

  ‘What? What is it?’ asked Shara, coming out of the shop with two ice-creams in her hand. She ran to Jess.

  Jess passed her the phone. ‘You read the next message. I can’t.’