‘Anyway, darling, I’ve got to go. Mobile calls cost the earth. Just wanted to remind you it’s your father’s birthday tomorrow. Justin and Mel are putting on tea for him at their place, so give us a call there, okay?’
‘Okay, Mum. Thanks for reminding me. You lose track of the date up here. And give Beccy my congratulations. I’ll check out her winning ribbons when I get home. I’ve bought them a nursery rhymes CD as a present but I’ll have to get something else instead. I forget how quickly they’re growing up.’
‘Yes, they are, my darling, just like someone else I know,’ her mother added. ‘Miss you. We’ll talk to you tomorrow night. Don’t forget to ring. Your father will be counting on it.’
‘Okay, Mum. Love you. Bye.’ Bella clicked her phone shut and shoved it back into her pocket, amazed there’d been mobile reception. She’d had to rely on a Sunday-night call from the stockmen’s quarters phone and email to stay in touch. Even her brother, who was five years older, had sent her a couple of emails over the year.
She knew they missed her at home. Twenty-two years before, her parents had almost given up hope of having another baby – then surprise, surprise, she’d come along. And life had been Hells Bells ever since, her father was fond of saying. Bella smiled at the thought of home. Cranking up the motorbike, she shook her hair in the breeze, pulled on her helmet and rode on, a grin as wide as the horizon spreading across her face.
As she drove up to the quarters, she could see Patty letting one of her plant horses go in the paddock. ‘What’s going on?’ yelled Bella as she reefed off her helmet.
‘Finished mustering.’
‘This early in the day?’
‘Yeah. Truck was due early arvie, so we pulled out all stops and had the mob in by lunchtime. Have you eaten?’
‘Nope, and I haven’t got time. Siobhan’s on my case and I’ve got to clean the guest quarters . . . now!’
‘What’s her hurry?’
‘I don’t know,’ said Bella. ‘But I’d better move. I just hope those toffy company VIPS weren’t too messy. The last lot were ferals.’
‘I’ll come help you if you like, though it’ll cost you.’
‘Like what?’
‘Mmm . . . let me see. How about lending me your new Ariat boots for the Burrindal B&S at home in December?’
Bella had to weigh that one up. It was big. She’d only bought the prized boots a few months earlier, shelling out a couple of hundred dollars of her hard-earned cash. It was just her luck to have a best friend with the same size feet. Then again, those guest quarters were mighty big and she really hated cleaning.
‘It’s a deal but, girl, you are going to work.’
The guest quarters stood alone on a rise looking down over the sweeping alluvial flats of the Ainsley River. They were in an impressive long, low brick building with broad verandahs shading all sides, and had been built primarily to house pastoral company visitors, Ainsley being only one of a group of stations held by the owners.
Bella and Patty entered through the laundry door. The cleaning products were in a neatly packed box above the laundry wash trough, the vacuum placed in the doorway where, Bella assumed, Siobhan wanted her to trip over it.
Avoiding the vacuum, they made their way into the main hallway of the house and came to a halt in front of the formal lounge bar, which, sadly, was empty. ‘A drink would’ve helped us get through this. Wonder if they left any liquor in any of those little bottles Siobhan puts in each bedroom,’ said Bella.
‘The toffs probably drank it all,’ said Patty as she collapsed into a soft leather chair. ‘Jeez, the décor’s a bit flash.’
‘Yeah, the visitors are mainly from Brisbane and overseas. They like the finer things in life. I’ll have a snoop around,’ Bella said as she walked off down the hall towards the bedrooms. ‘See if I can find us something to tipple.’
‘Fat chance,’ called Patty, bouncing up and down in the chair. ‘They would’ve taken it home. Like the cute little bottles of shampoo you flog when you stay at a motel.’
‘Oh ye of little faith!’ Bella waltzed back into the lounge holding an armful of clinking bottles. ‘I reckon there’s at least half left in each one. And there are six bedrooms, which means . . .’
‘. . . there should be plenty!’ Patty grinned. ‘This’ll help that vacuum go faster.’
‘And I reckon we deserve a reward for working so hard this year.’ Bella placed the bottles on top of the bar.
‘You betcha, girlie!’ Snatching a Bundy rum, Patty ripped off the top. ‘Here’s cheers, big ears!’
It was dusk when Siobhan walked in the laundry door of the guest house. Jimbo down at the stockmen’s quarters had been calling Bella and Patty over the radio for the last hour to no avail. He was wondering if they wanted their tea. Worried, he had rung his boss, and the boss – Siobhan – had responded.
Clad in a tight black miniskirt, topped with a deep V-neck top and tottering on killer heels that made her bunions hurt, Siobhan was on her way to Jack and Sheila McLaverty’s for dinner – a monthly get-together for all the station bosses. She’d left Robert out in the wagon taking a call on his satellite phone, while she checked on the whereabouts of the pain-in-the-arse Victorian floosies.
Thinking of the beautiful and buxom girl she was about to confront, she adjusted her tight skirt, wiggling it a little higher. She then pulled down her V-neck to show more of her meagre cleavage, pushed her arms into her sides to make the most of her push-up bra and tottered through the laundry door . . .
. . . face-planting over the vacuum cleaner she’d left there a few hours before. A vacuum that obviously had not been moved or used.
‘Shit! What was that?’ said Bella as she sat upright in the cane easy chair in the lounge.
‘What was what?’ asked Patty, who was sprawled in her favourite place when drunk – on the floor.
‘That noise!’
‘What noise?’
‘That noise I heard?’
‘What noise?’ repeated Patty.
‘Oh no, it was that noise!’ cried Bella as she tried to jump to her feet, overbalancing and crashing down across Patty instead.
‘The two Victorians were drunk,’ Siobhan told her dinner companions later on that evening. ‘Not just tipsy. Blind drunk. So drunk they were sprawled on top of each other on the floor. Disgusting.’
Indignant and self-righteous, she’d held forth over dinner with her opinions on the two girls and their behaviour until a wearied Sheila McLaverty had forcefully changed the subject. Privately Sheila cheered the two girls, knowing what a bitch Rob Davidson’s wife was. Sheila had her own thoughts on Bella and Patty, seeing first-hand the fun – and, yes, compassion – the two girls had brought to this far-flung outpost. Helping when Max had his accident and then ringing the Andersons in Brisbane every couple of days to see how they were all going; it was more than Siobhan had done. Thanks to Bella the gardens on the station had never looked so good, a cool green refuge for the stockmen after a long and hot day in the saddle. And then there was the previously high rate of sick leave from the stockmen’s camp. It was down to nil lately, thanks to Patty.
Sheila sighed. Having adult children herself, she knew it had been about time for the two girls to break out – young ones these days could only be good for so long – but it was just unfortunate they chose to do so on Siobhan’s time and turf.
‘So I told them they were fired!’ said Siobhan, satisfaction in her voice. ‘Didn’t I, Robert? They leave tomorrow. I will not tolerate such behaviour. It’s a bad influence on the rest of the staff.’
Jack stifled a laugh, and Sheila knew her husband was thinking that half the station hands would have been long gone if Siobhan had her way. Most of their best stockmen had a love affair with the bottle. It was just the way it was in this lonely part of the world.
Sheila made a mental note to go down to the stockmen’s quarters in the morning and bid the girls goodbye. She’d also ring the old stockman from Johan
na Downs, Harry Bailey. He was really fond of the girls, which was saying something; not much crept under that crusty bushman’s veneer. He was better with horses than people. Harry could take the most recalcitrant, wild-eyed steed and in a couple of hours have that same animal lying on the ground with Harry sitting on its belly whispering sweet nothings in its ears. He was known throughout Queensland and the Territory for his horse whispering.
Looking across the table, Sheila could see Rob’s uncomfortable expression. No doubt he was thinking he was now down a ringer, a gardener and a fill-in cook. It served him right. If he couldn’t keep his wife’s spitefulness in hand, he deserved all the trouble he got.
There was quite a crowd to see them off, something the girls hadn’t expected. Sheila and Jack, having got over his missing loader by now. Rodney along with Jimbo the cook.
Harry Bailey turned up at the last minute to give both girls a handmade leather wallet, each engraved with their name; a souvenir from their time in outback Queensland. Tears came to both girls’ eyes as old Harry handed over his presents. ‘I’ve been making them for a while, but finished them off last night after I heard you were leaving. Now don’t you go forgetting, Bella me girl.’ Harry leaned in and gave her a rough hug.
‘Don’t forget what, Harry?’
‘How to lace that bloody girth.’
Bella burst out laughing, making everyone turn in their direction, while Harry ducked his head in embarrassment.
‘We use real stock saddles in Victoria, Harry. With proper girths that have buckles. You come on down one day and I’ll show you how we do it in the mountains.’
‘Now, Bella,’ cut in an amused Patty, ‘don’t you think he’s a bit old for you? Plus I think a certain brother of mine might get jealous.’
The whole crowd around Patty’s red Holden ute roared and Harry didn’t know which way to look. ‘Just kidding, Harry, just kidding,’ said Patty as she gave the old man a hug. ‘And I promise, if I win the whip-cracking championship at the Nunkeri Muster again this year, I’ll give you a ring.’
‘You do that, girlie. Be nice to hear all those Sundaymorning practice sessions didn’t go to waste.’
‘What’s this, Harry? You haven’t been giving her lessons, have you?’ Bella pouted at the old man. ‘Patty was impossible to beat last year, without having a master like you to help her.’
Sheila stepped forward next to offer a hug. ‘By the way, girls, Knackers rang this morning. Looks like Max will be let out of hospital tomorrow. They’re all going on a holiday in the Whitsundays. Knackers sounded so excited. Just like a big kid himself really.’
Patty laughed. ‘Knackers in shorts? I’d like to see that! His legs have never seen the sun. Ever. Oh God, those white chicken legs.’
Bella tried to swallow her giggles but the vision of a red-faced Knackers, broad-brimmed hat on his head, big barrel chest clad in a striped cowboy shirt sauntering down the sand with psychedelic board shorts on was too much. Unfortunately the Queenslanders standing around them couldn’t see the joke.
‘Well, something’s funny,’ said Rodney, looking puzzled.
Sheila smiled. These two girls really had brought a ray of sunshine to Ainsley Station, even if she couldn’t understand some of their jokes. They would be missed. ‘Good luck, you two. Stay in touch.’
Piling into the fully laden ute, the girls flung kisses from the windows as they spun the wheels on the track for the last time.
‘Well, that’s it,’ said Patty, as she nosed her ute through the gateway of Ainsley Station. She pulled up beside the forty-four gallon drum mailbox. ‘Which way do we go? We’re running a couple of months early.’
‘Well, I’ve been thinking . . .’ said Bella, and Patty buried her face in her hands.
‘Last time you thought, Hells Bells, we got fired.’
‘Yeah well, we had a good time doing it, didn’t we?’
‘Too right we did. That liquor was top-shelf stuff.’
‘As I was saying, I was thinking we could pool our bucks and still have a little holiday on the way home.’
‘A little holiday? Neither of us is due back to work until January, although I wouldn’t mind getting home earlier.’ Patty’s dark eyes turned dreamy and Bella knew she was thinking of Macca.
‘I wouldn’t mind getting home either, so how about we check out the coast and make it home in time for the Burrindal B&S and Christmas – what do you reckon? If we’re careful with our money we might be able to do it.’
‘It sounds like a plan,’ said Patty. ‘But . . .’
‘But what?’
‘Maybe we should try and be a little bit responsible here. Go west and get another job?’
‘Responsible? Since when have you been responsible?’
‘C’mon. I’ve been very responsible since we made our last bet.’
‘Bullshit! You slept with Macca!’
‘And you should have slept with Will. Maybe you wouldn’t be so bloody cranky if you had. Although why anyone would want to get down and dirty with my brother . . . Yuck!’
‘The bet was no sleeping with anyone until six weeks after you met them.’ Bella was indignant. ‘You just gave in, Patty. How could you? We were trying to save your soul, after all.’
‘I’ve known Macca for years, so he doesn’t count.’
‘You’re splitting hairs, Pat Me Tuffet.’
‘You’re just dirty you didn’t work out the loophole first.’
Yep, she was. Totally. ‘You owe me a slab of rum-and-coke and fifty dollars, girl.’
Patty ignored her and pulled a coin from the ashtray. ‘Heads we go left to the coast and a holiday; tails we go right and inland to find a job out west for a while. We’ll head home in time for the B&S, though; I can feel those Ariat boots on my feet already.’
‘No way, sunshine. You didn’t clean the guest quarters.’
‘I did so. I helped you clean up the grog. Doesn’t that count?’
‘No.’
Patty looked momentarily disappointed.
‘Heads for the holiday.’ Bella wanted a decision.
Patty spun the coin in the air and slammed it down on the back of her fist.
They both held their breath as Patty lifted her hand.
‘Heads,’ she said, a grin lighting up her face. ‘Who needs to be responsible?’
‘Yee ha!’ yelled Bella. ‘Watch out, coast, here we come.’
Chapter 9
It was five weeks later, on a sunny Friday afternoon. They’d just left Tamworth, having decided no trip for two country girls was complete without a visit to the Australian capital of country music. They’d swung in from the coast on their way home.
It was Bella’s turn to drive, and she was struck by the sight of hundreds of umbrella-like grass seed heads rolling across the ground, piling up against fence posts, chasing each other over the paddocks and along the roadsides, looking for all the world like tumbleweed.
Sara Storer’s tumbleweed.
‘Tumbleweeds!’ she yelled.
Slouched in the passenger seat, hat pulled over her eyes, Patty roused from a doze.
‘Look at them go,’ said Bella. She jabbed at the ute’s accelerator in an attempt to outrun one that was rolling in the grassy long paddock beside her.
‘That’s flaming windmill grass, you dill, not tumbleweed, and it’s got a tailwind, so unless you want a speeding ticket I suggest you give up the chase now.’
‘It looks close enough to tumbleweed to me. Where’s that CD?’
‘What CD?’
‘Sara Storer. Silver Skies. With the tumbleweed song she played in Gundolin. Where did we put it? . . . Oh here it is.’ Bella found the CD right where it should be, in the CD holder. One-handed, she shook it free from its cover, then went to jam it into the CD player.
‘Hang on a minute.’ Patty stopped Bella from killing the radio. Jacking up the volume, the Americanised country twang of the radio announcer filled the cabin of the ute.
‘For
anyone interested in crossing the border, the Nunkeri Muster will now be held this weekend. Usually held in February or March, the organisers have moved the event forward because of concerns about bushfires later on in summer due to the drought.
‘But regardless of the time of year, they’ve got the Stockmen’s Challenge, a demanding and hotly contested horse race, which will test out the best horsemen in the land. There’s some hay-stacking, round-bale-rolling, whip-cracking and bush poetry. On Friday night a country-music DJ will hit the stage. He’ll be followed by a cover band on Saturday night . . .’
Bella looked at Patty.
Patty looked at Bella.
No-one knew they were on their way home. They’d decided the news they’d been sacked was better told to their parents in person. And they’d wanted to surprise Will and Macca. All phone calls home had been brief, text messages vague. What better way to end a year of fun and freedom than with the Nunkeri Muster?
And Will and Macca were sure to be there.
‘You in?’ said Patty, looking across the ute at her best mate. ‘Boy, oh boy, I’m in!’ yelled Bella, dropping the CD and shoving her left hand in the air.
‘Let’s do it then!’ cried Patty, slamming a high five.
‘You realise we won’t get there tonight,’ said Bella, a little while later.
Patty grunted, again nestled under her hat against the seat-rest.
‘If we start out early in the morning, we’ll get there in plenty of time for tomorrow night, though.’
Another grunt from the passenger seat.
That was enough encouragement for Bella. She notched up her speed and firmly pointed the ute’s bonnet south while the radio announcer voiced the local rural news. With nothing to do but drive, Bella snagged her Sara Storer CD from the floor where it had fallen, shoved it into the player and cranked up the volume.
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