‘Oh shit, oh shit . . . I’m sorry! My mouth runs away before my head catches up.’ The puffy face blushed.
‘I’m sure I looked the same, if you’d seen me in Melbourne after he left,’ replied Bella softly, while trying to stop her own face from reddening.
She could see Warren was turning, an impatient expression on his face. He was looking for her. It was a chance to excuse herself from Shelley. And it was time to move back in again: talk the talk, walk the walk; participate in this charade of fun and enjoyment, while all the time wondering where her mountain lover had disappeared to in the night.
Will was outside standing at the fire drum, drowning himself in rum. He knew he was going to regret it in the morning, but at this stage he didn’t give a shit. There were plenty of blokes crowded around the drum, piled high with blazing logs, and Macca was having a fine old time telling a yarn on the other side of the fire. But Will was an island of silence, not inviting anyone else to share his space.
He’d let her walk away again. He couldn’t believe it had happened twice. He caught himself wondering if it was three tries and you’re out. ‘You’re a bloody fool, O’Hara,’ he muttered to himself as he took another slurp to empty his can. He threw the aluminium Bundy bear on the ground, squashed it flat with his boot heel, then picked it up and threw it on the fire.
‘Whoa, bucko! I’ll have to clean that bugger out in the morning. Don’t want to be fishing for bloody dirty cans.’ Old Wes Ogilvie hobbled up to his side. ‘You pissed?’ he asked, peering at Will with concern.
‘Yep,’ said Will.
‘Mmm . . . Not like you nowadays. What’s up your gander, or are you just pissin’ Trin’s booze into the wind ’cause you can?’
‘Don’t really want to talk about it, Wes. Here, have a can.’ Will pulled two from an esky loaded with ice, beer, rum and bourbon.
‘Ta, mate. I don’t mind drinking Trin’s piss. He don’t give it away too often. He’s as tight as those molars he used to pull, is that grandson of mine. Although, I have to say, he’s been splashing it around lately with this flash weddin’ and then there’s that new ute he’s bought. I tell you, if it has tits or wheels it’ll cost ya.’
No answer.
Wes took another look at Will, who was staring sightlessly into the shooting, bright orange flames. Sparks hissed into the air as a log dropped further down the drum.
He tried again. ‘If you don’t want to talk about it, it must be a woman who’s driving you to drink. They’ll do that too.’
‘Don’t want to go there, Wes.’
‘She must be good.’
‘Yeah, she’s good all right,’ said Will as he remembered the passionate scenes on Hugh’s Plain only hours before. Then he clamped his hand around his new can and squished it a bit, as he realised what he’d said.
‘Is she worth it, mate?’ asked a shrewd old Wesley, as he juggled to pull out a pipe for a smoke.
‘Dunno. Probably.’ Will moved his weight, agitated now. ‘I’ll be fucked if I know, Wes.’ He took another swig and stared at the blue-and-orange helicopter sitting on the airstrip.
Wes might have been old, but he’d experienced forty years of true love with his wife Catherine before she’d passed away. He followed Will’s gaze to the helicopter.
‘You want something bad enough, boy, you’ll fight for it. But you gotta want it bad enough first.’
Will slowly turned to the old man at his side and stared silently at the wisdom in his eyes. He tipped a pointer finger to his hat and walked away, into the dark mountain night.
After the food had been devoured and copious amounts of grog had been drunk, the bride and groom threw the bouquet and garter for the spinsters and bachelors in the crowd to catch. The bridal bouquet landed on a branch in a massive manna gum tree, a fancy beribboned appendage to a grey-white trunk, gnarled and twisted with ageless grace from wind and cold. The lace and satin pink garter spun and whirled its way through the air, to land at Warren’s feet.
‘Argh, Bella watch out. He’ll have you married, barefoot and preggers before you know it!’ yelled Macca from the back of the crowd. Bella could’ve killed her cousin.
Soon after, Warren took his leave, kissing the air somewhere near Bella’s nose and bolting to the helicopter, where the patient pilot had sat for most of the night, his head in a newspaper.
Trin had arranged for a party-hire company in Narree to set up and then clean up after the wedding, so there wasn’t much the friends and family had to do after the bride and groom left.
The flash new Toyota dual-cab ute – the groom’s surprise gift to his new wife – carried Caro and Trin off to the luxurious retreat that was Bella and Warren’s present to the couple. The ute trailed soup and Milo tins in its wake. Shaving cream adorned all the windows and confetti flew from the air vents. Nothing was sacred when it came to the honeymoon car at a country wedding, as Trin discovered when he got out to carry his new wife over the threshold of their posh suite – squashed flat to his arse was a dim sim that had been placed strategically in the dark crease of his seat.
Chapter 29
Bella made it back to her parents’ place at Narree by very late Sunday afternoon, having taken the long way home via the coast. She had been hoping a walk along the beach would help her sort out her rampaging thoughts and feelings. It hadn’t. Just made her all the more confused.
Merinda stood beckoning in its serenity at the end of the plane-tree drive, but Bella sat in her vehicle at the front gate and surveyed the paddocks on both sides of the track. Thrown across the flats was the weak, late-afternoon light she always associated with Sundays; the death throes of a fantastic weekend before school or work the next day.
She gazed at the heifers playing around in the paddock to her left, the calves of last year halfway to maturity, having a ball in adolescence. Then to her right were a few morose choppers, cows with recurrent mastitis or low milk yields that had been consigned to be carted away in the cattle truck to the chopper market on Tuesday. They’d be on the road to the abbatoirs the following day.
She and Patty had once been like the heifers: carefree adolescents. At the grand old age of thirty, she now felt like the choppers. Thoughts of returning to Melbourne tomorrow – to Warren – caused her stomach to churn.
Bella needed to see her family, to touch her home roots. See if anything could stop this feeling that her life was spinning out of control; help her to decide what she really wanted.
She walked in the back door to witness her mother on the way to bed early, Frank helping the wheelchair along the deep but warm hall.
‘Hi Mum, Dad!’ she called as she moved quickly to the chair.
Her mother’s tired eyes looked up at her as Bella kissed the top of her neatly coiffured head. Bella had always marvelled at her father’s ability to cope with her mother’s needs these last eight years. From wiping her bottom to setting her hair, Frank was a dab hand at them all. The only thing he couldn’t abide was cutting Francine’s toenails – so he employed a podiatrist to do that.
‘Have a good time, sweetheart?’ Her mother’s voice still held its warmth even after the long, hard years.
‘Yes, Mum, had a great time,’ Bella lied. ‘You would have loved Caro’s dress and Trinity looked beaut.’
‘And did Macca behave himself for a change?’ Francine’s eyes glinted in the soft old-fashioned hall lights.
‘Yes, he did,’ said Bella. But your daughter didn’t, she added silently to herself. ‘The day went off really well. I’ll tell you all about it in the morning.’ Most of it, anyway.
Kissing her mother goodnight, she made for the kitchen at the back of the house. She couldn’t handle any more emotion today and after practically no sleep the night before, her eyes were heavy. She’d grab something to eat and hit the sack. Maybe she’d sleep tonight.
Because she’d gone to bed so early, after eating some spaghetti bolognaise she’d found in the fridge, Bella’s eyes were wide open and her body was
ready to rise by six the next morning. She could hear snatches of humming milking machines coming from her open bedroom window, so she jumped out of bed and riffled through her ancient wardrobe for some work clothes.
By six-fifteen she was in the dairy. Her father was whistling tunelessly as he listened to ABC radio.
‘What are you laughing at, daughter of mine?’ said Frank, surprised to see Bella up so early.
‘I was just remembering how you and Justin used to fight over the radio, the commercial channel versus the ABC.’
Frank laughed as he swung a set of machines under a cow’s udder and started to attach the cups to the teats. ‘Yes, the radio would change from the ABC to 3TR depending on who was at the radio end of the pit. Do you remember when I did my block at your brother the day I wanted to listen to the interview about the O’Haras at Tindarra? Justin stormed out. He never loved going up to Maggie’s as much as you did. He preferred surfing at the beach with his mates.’
Bella grabbed another set of milking machines and swung into helping her father put them on the cows’ teats. The cows were lined up in front of them in a row, bums facing the pit, mouths munching on grain in the feeders at their heads.
‘How did you two sort out the radio?’
‘Justin bought himself a portable. We were both happy then.’
The commentator droned on about the latest in environmental funding as Bella and her father moved into a comfortable rhythm of putting on and then pulling off the machines. Sometimes Bella dashed out into the sunlit yard to urge the cows onto the milking platforms with the help of a trusty piece of poly pipe. ‘Go on, get up. Get UP, girls!’ she yelled. She’d forgotten just how much she enjoyed this, working with her father and the stock outdoors in the early-morning sun, which was already giving off heat.
Frank talked on and off throughout the milking, filling her in on all the farm news. ‘We’re doing really well this year. Milk prices are up for a change. I’ve put in a couple of paddocks of maize to silage into winter feed for the cows. It’s expensive to grow but it’ll save us from buying in so much extra feed. Worth a try, anyway. Oh, and I’ve planted some lucerne for round bale silage; being a deep-rooted crop, it should go all right on these alluvial soils. It’s perennial too, so it should last about five years or so. Will O’Hara’s growing it really well up at Tindarra on those rich river flats, particularly since he’s put in spray irrigation.’
Bella ducked her head behind a conveniently placed cow’s rump, intent on getting a cup onto a teat. She didn’t want her father to see her blushing.
Milking was a monotonous but soothing job, and soon father and daughter found themselves letting the last lot of cows off the platform. Frank moved around the milk room and pit areas, cleaning the equipment while Bella manned the high-pressure hoses to wash down the concrete yard and milking platforms. As the sun warmed her back, and the water gushed from various two-inch hoses, Bella found the stresses of the last few days sliding away as easily as the bucket-loads of cow shit pouring down the effluent drains.
After finishing the washing-up, Bella followed the last of the cows along the track, intending to lock them into their day paddock. She took in the brilliant, sunny morning and whistled to her old dog Kelly, who was now more Frank’s dog than her own, to round up the few stragglers who’d turned into the wrong laneway. Finally all the cows were in the right paddock, heads down, tails flicking happily, munching on the lush, green irrigated pastures. Bella swung the metal gate shut and hooked up the latch.
From what Bella could see as she walked back along the track towards her old home, the lucerne her father had planted looked fantastic. Even though Frank had only cut it the week before, a watering had the dark green plants sitting up and reaching for the sky once more.
Ambling on, a smile on her face and Kelly gambling around at her heels, she stopped at the next gate in front of the paddock of maize, opened it and walked through. She plonked her neat Wrangler-clad butt on the edge of the concrete stock trough that sat ten metres into the paddock, taking time to soak in the heat. The peace. She’d forgotten how serene and quiet it was out here, the milking machines now turned off. There was nothing to be heard other than the cry of the crows and squawks of the cockatoos as they dove in to sample the golden cobs of corn peaking from husks among the crop.
Looking out across the broad acres of maize, waving its leafy green fronds in the very slight ten o’clock breeze, she heard her father clang the gate latch open. Then shut. Wearing a faded blue, floppy terry-towelling hat, he walked into his maize crop and came out a few moments later holding a handful of rich, dark soil. Striding across, he sat down on the edge of the trough next to her, pouring soil from one hand to the other, quietly contemplating.
‘Maize is going to need some water. I’d better start the bore,’ he said, as he frowned at the loose, free-flowing dirt.
Bella nodded, looking at the grains of soil as they poured from hand to hand. Frank should have been able to clump the earth into a ball held together with moisture from the soil. The crop needed water urgently.
Bella could almost feel her dad’s concern. But she knew it wasn’t just the lack of water to the maize causing him grief.
‘I’d forgotten how peaceful it was just to sit here and be,’ she said. ‘You can actually smell the sweetness of summer and feel the rain those thunderclouds sitting out on the hills might bring later.’ Her eyes went to the massive blue hills spread out to the north, just beyond the boundary of her family’s farm. The mountains of the Great Dividing Range looked close this morning, like they had picked themselves up and moved nearer to Narree. The clouds hanging around the fuzzy grey-blue hilltops of bush had been there since she’d called in on Friday, on her way to the wedding.
‘What’s up, Hells Bells?’ asked Frank.
She’d almost forgotten he was there, sitting quietly as he watched his daughter slowly and noticeably relax.
The use of her old nickname was nearly her undoing. But she didn’t want to dissolve into tears on her father’s shoulder, not when she hadn’t quite put her finger on what was wrong herself. Not when he had so much to deal with . . . her mother . . . the farm. It made her problems seem so inconsequential.
‘I don’t know, Dad, just unsettled. Not sure about stuff, I guess.’
And once again her mind flashed back to the scene at Hugh’s Plain.
She’d known Will would come. She had heard his call on the wind as Aprillia bolted through the wedding crowd.
‘Bella!’
Will could ride better than anyone else within cooee on that day. Bella knew he would be the first to find her as she lay in the thick native grass. She could blame what happened between them on the highly sexed emotions of the bride and groom or the adrenaline of the frightening ride. She could hold Warren responsible for being an arsehole or herself for questioning so much about her life. Maybe she could even claim temporary insanity. Or tell herself Will took advantage of her – but in her heart she knew that was a lie.
As she sat on the side of the trough, moving her hand back and forth swiping at the flies, she saw her father’s eyes drawn to the ostentatious ring on her finger, which was glinting brazenly in the sun.
Bella suspected that underneath his polite reserve her father didn’t really like Warren. He’d never come out and said as much; it was just a feeling she always had, something she’d steadfastly ignored. Aside from meeting her parents once, Warren had always made excuses whenever she’d suggested they visit them.
Bella’s gaze moved to her father’s hands, now resting peacefully on his knees. She’d always had a thing about hands, believing they could tell a tale or two. In her father’s she could see strength, the protruding veins of hard work, and brown liver spots of age. All the signs of honest toil, and she felt a sudden rush of overwhelming guilt, shame for what she’d done with Will yesterday. Her father and mother were good people, who’d brought her up to be decent, trustworthy and truthful. Making love to one man
while engaged to marry another didn’t cut it. But hard on the heels of the shame and guilt came the insidious thought – was she being true to herself? Why feel guilt and shame over something that felt so right?
She shrugged those ideas aside. Will was obviously only after sex. Nothing more, nothing less, and she’d handed herself to him on a platter. More fool her.
Chapter 30
Four weeks later, Bella was trying to find something decent to watch on TV when the phone rang in the Melbourne penthouse. It was her father, which was strange, because Frank hated using the phone. Warren was working late, as usual.
‘I’ve been thinking . . .’ said Frank.
Bella sat back in her chair and curled her fingers around the armrest to wait for a bombshell. Her father never started a sentence with ‘I’ve been thinking . . .’ unless something major was about to be declared. ‘Thought I’d take your mother on a round-the-world trip. It’s been something she’s always wanted to do and . . . what, with everything that’s happened . . . we’ve never done it. The cows are going well, milk prices are the best they’ve been in years, so I thought now’s the time.’
Bella could imagine her father sitting in the hall at Merinda. Could see him leaning back in the solid carver chair as he spooled the telephone cord around his big hand.
‘Are you asking me if you should do it, Dad? Or are you telling me that’s what you’re doing?’ asked Bella.
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