Jessica had nodded and mumbled her agreement. He was used to debriefing after CFS callouts – that was probably what he was doing now. All she’d really wanted was the moral support. But if Steve needed to talk it through, then there wasn’t any point making him feel worse by reminding him. It would have been different if he’d been in the pub kicking back with his mates – not that he ever really was – but he’d been off working hard for the community they loved so much.
‘Right, I’m going to go and do a quick check of the stock while you have a bit of a rest,’ he said as he put their empty plates in the sink.
‘Could you pop by Faith on the way? Perhaps take her a couple of carrots.’
‘Good idea. I need to say thanks, anyway,’ he said, going to the fridge.
‘Not those, the horse carrots. In the fridge in the shed.’
‘Ah, right, I knew that,’ he said with a laugh. ‘Right, see you soon.’ He kissed her on the forehead. ‘I’ll take the dogs in case I need any stragglers moved. Come on, you guys.’
‘Okay. See you. Be careful. And take your mobile – just in case.’
‘Yep, got it,’ he said, patting his shirt pocket.
Jessica lay down on the couch, pulled the throw rug over her and turned the TV on. She flicked though all the channels and back again. Nothing grabbed her fancy. She went through the list of recorded shows on their PVR. Some she wouldn’t have minded watching, but they were mostly shows they had agreed to only watch together. She went back to the TV channels and finally chose a movie that had started twenty minutes before. Maybe she’d catch up with the story.
But as hard as she stared, she couldn’t concentrate. Her brain was whirling – processing what, she wasn’t quite sure. She was still restless. Her muscles ached and she felt pretty washed out, probably still a little shocked from the morning’s events.
She turned the sound low, shuffled down the couch and shut her eyes. She doubted she’d go to sleep, but felt a bit of a rest might help. And maybe her brain would decide what it was trying to process and tell her, or at least quieten down. She hoped if she did nod off she wouldn’t be back to having nightmares of plunging into water while on the back of a horse.
*
Jessica woke feeling a little disoriented. Wow, she had fallen asleep after all. And judging by her level of grogginess, she had slept for quite a while. Had she dreamt? She felt calm, so no nightmares. Good. But she had dreamt, she realised, as fragments began coming back to her. She squeezed her eyes shut to try to concentrate and sharpen the images.
A horse doing a cross-country round. Had it been her riding? She wasn’t sure. The horse going around had been chestnut, like Faith. No, wait, it had been Faith. With her aboard? She frowned. Maybe. Maybe not. Probably not; she hadn’t been feeling the ride, she had been watching it.
Talia.
And then it slowly dawned on her: Talia’s grandmother should know how special Faith was – well, she probably already knew that, but she felt an overwhelming urge to tell the old lady the courage Faith had shown and how much she was loved, how much she’d helped Jessica recover. Her heart swelled. That’s what her restlessness was telling her, of that she was now sure. Knowing how much Faith meant to Jessica and Steve would bring the old lady peace.
Jessica frowned. The horse had killed the woman’s granddaughter – for all Jessica knew, the only family she had. Would bringing her news of Faith hurt her more? But she had practically begged Steve to take the horse when she so easily could have had one of the doggers pick her up.
Talia’s grandmother definitely cared. She would want to know. That was what Jessica’s heart was telling her, and she had to ignore the twinges of doubt in her head.
But it was time for the head to take over. What was the woman’s name? Jessica tried to remember if Steve had said. But it didn’t matter, she realised, feeling excitement surge. It would be written on the cheque stub and on the receipt from the clearing sale. She leapt up and went into the office. It took just a few moments to locate the details. Thank goodness for them both being organised neatniks.
Mrs E Rowntree. Damn, what was her first name? And where was she living? Her address was not listed, not that Jessica had been expecting it to be – the sale had been run through the local Landmark office. And there was no way they would tell her the residential address of one of their clients.
She tapped a pen on her lip, trying to conjure up what Steve had told her that day. She hadn’t really been listening very carefully. She felt ashamed of her attitude all over again. She did think he had said the old lady was only there for the day and that the farm house was empty. So perhaps she lived in a retirement village.
Jessica took her laptop back to the lounge. She knew of at least one retirement village in Woodside. And each of the neighbouring towns had at least one.
‘Fingers crossed she hasn’t left the district,’ Jessica muttered as she opened the Yellow Pages website and typed in her search. It took just a second for one hundred and fifty results to come up. This will take forever! Upon closer inspection, she saw many of them were for suburbs much closer to the city – up to an hour’s drive away. So much for putting in the postcode she wanted and selecting the option for local businesses. Oh well, there was nothing for it but to pick out the local ones and start phoning. Jessica grabbed the phone off the coffee table and began dialling.
She paused at the last digit. How should she approach this? Probably like phoning a hotel guest, she supposed. They wouldn’t give details out; she’d have to pretend she thought Mrs Rowntree was definitely a patient. Were they patients? No, they were probably referred to as residents. If only she had Mrs Rowntree’s first name.
And she’d probably have to tell a few white lies when she found her if they asked if she was family. Oh dear. Or was that only in hospital emergency, or in hospital emergency on TV and movies? Regardless, she’d worry about that then, when she found Mrs E Rowntree.
She prodded the last number and held her breath.
It took whoever it was so long to answer that when a breathless voice came on the other end, Jessica was taken a little by surprise. She’d been just about to hang up and try again later.
‘Er, hello, could I please speak to Mrs Rowntree?’ she said. She suspected her eagerness meant she came across a little brusque. She’d have to temper that next time.
‘I’m sorry, there’s no one of that name here.’
‘Oh, right, thanks very much. I must have the wrong place.’
As she hung up, Jessica wondered if that meant Mrs Rowntree had never lived there or if she’d perhaps left. She should have asked some more questions, so she knew for sure. Her eyes prickled at the thought that someone probably only left a retirement home on a gurney. God, she hoped she wouldn’t be too late. But Faith had only been with them a few weeks and the old lady had obviously been well enough to be at the clearing sale.
As the second call was answered, Jessica decided to change her spiel.
‘Hello,’ she said, after the person at the other end had said the name of the facility and her name. ‘I’m looking for a Mrs E Rowntree.’ She almost added that she was an old family friend, but stopped herself at the last moment. The thought that not knowing someone’s first name was a bit of a giveaway to not being a very close friend – or, more likely, not even knowing the person at all. It then struck her that professional people, like lawyers and doctors, probably rang these sorts of places all the time. They would be more formal. Yes, she could well be one of those, she thought, feeling a little buoyed.
The woman took a moment. Jessica could hear the tapping of fingers on a keyboard in the background.
‘No, sorry, no one of that name here – and hasn’t been in the last five years.’
‘Okay, thanks very much.’
Jessica felt a little deflated. She’d imagined she’d have had Mrs E Rowntree’s whereabouts after one call and would be planning when to go and visit by now. She hoped she wouldn’t have to call e
very place in the search results. She decided to change tack and begin at the bottom of the list.
Steve came in halfway through her seventh call. She’d almost given up on six – had nearly accepted that this was not meant to be – but had countered it with the thought that seven was supposed to be a lucky number. Though, ‘seventh time lucky’ really didn’t have quite the same ring to it that ‘third time lucky’ did.
She held her hand up to silence Steve as he appeared in front of her. She was stunned by what she was hearing.
‘I’m sorry, she died a few weeks ago.’
‘Oh. When, exactly?’
Jessica felt the blood drain from her face and her mouth drop open when she was told the date: the eighth of November. The same date as on the cheque stub and paperwork for the clearing sale – the same day Steve had brought Faith home.
‘Thank you,’ she croaked, and hung up. She held onto the phone in her lap and stared at it. Tears began to fill her eyes and then drop, slowly at first, and then in a rush. Steve was at her side in an instant with his arm around her shoulder.
‘What’s wrong? What’s happened?’
Jessica looked up at Steve. ‘She’s dead,’ she said.
He went pale. ‘Who’s dead? Not Tiffany? What’s happened?’
Jessica shook her head. ‘Mrs Rowntree.’
‘Who?’ Then, as the name filtered through his memory, he said, ‘Oh. That’s sad.’ Confusion clouded his features as questions began to gather in his mind. ‘But why are you …?’
‘I wanted to tell her about how wonderful Faith is, how much we love her,’ Jessica blurted. ‘I thought it would be a comfort.’ An even stronger wave of emotion hit Jessica and she buried her head in Steve’s shoulder and wept.
‘I’m sure she knew,’ he said, stroking her hair.
Jessica gathered herself, willing the tears to subside. But she couldn’t totally shake the sadness, and still hadn’t when the phone in front of her began to ring. Steve answered it and she listened to the one-sided conversation:
‘Hello, Steve speaking … Oh, hi, Tiff. How’s things? … Oh shit, that’s not good. Of course you can. Do you need me to come and get you or anything? … No, thanks, but it’s all sorted – apricot chicken. There’s plenty to go around … Hey, before you go, are you still in town at work? … Could you do me, us, a favour? … We’re in need of comfort food, of the ice-cream, chocolate block, and chips variety … We’ll tell you everything when you get here. No, she’s fine … See you soon. Drive safely,’ he said and hung up.
‘That was Tiffany. Apparently the part of the Nairn road near her place is cut, so she can’t go home. I hope it’s okay that I said she could stay.’
Jessica nodded. ‘I’ll start dinner,’ she announced, getting up. She was afraid of saying more. She could feel the emotion lurking, and didn’t want a fresh round of tears.
‘I’m happy to do it if you’d rather rest.’
‘Thanks, but I’m fine.’ She told herself there was no point dwelling on Mrs Rowntree. And as she went into the kitchen, she was surprised to find the sadness drain away as if she’d just risen up out of it.
Jessica was further surprised to find she felt quite cheery, even to the point of humming while she trimmed the chicken pieces, rolled them in flour, and then stirred the sauce. She noticed Steve looking at her with a slightly perplexed expression a few times. Woman’s prerogative to change her mood, she thought, altering the saying to suit her circumstances. Not that she’d deliberately changed anything, it had just happened. Weird.
With dinner in the oven, Jessica went to check Faith for the last time that evening. Now the storm had passed and the weather looked clear, she could take her back to the paddock, but she decided to keep her in until the morning, just to be sure.
She was pleased to see the horse looked none the worse for their adventure. She’d checked her all over for any cuts and scrapes earlier. She glanced down her legs again in case some swelling had come up in the meantime. Thankfully she was unscathed. But Jessica cringed, as she always did, at seeing the old scars. A new wave of tears startled her. She told herself she was being stupid, brushed them away and swallowed the lump in her throat.
‘Good girl, you sleep tight,’ she said, giving the horse a final pat as she left.
Back in the house, she set up the spare room for her friend, putting fresh sheets on the bed and making sure to lay some clean clothes and a towel out.
Jessica went to the door as she heard Tiffany’s car pull up. She recognised that as much as she was looking forward to seeing her best friend and sharing her adventures with her, she was actually almost more looking forward to seeing what comfort food she had brought with her. She wasn’t really hungry, but was suddenly having a ferocious craving for chocolate and chips – together. She wouldn’t have believed it if she wasn’t feeling it, but she was actually salivating. She wiped away the moisture she felt creeping out of the corners of her mouth.
God, she hoped Tiffany had salt and vinegar chips. They weren’t her favourite flavour – barbecue was – in fact she didn’t really like the sharpness of salt and vinegar, but right now she really fancied some. What a day – it had even, apparently, upset her taste buds.
She opened the door wide as Tiffany got to it, laden with handbag and grocery bags.
‘Hey there,’ Tiffany said.
‘Hey. Great to see you.’ Jessica hugged her friend tightly. ‘Ooh, goody, chips,’ she said, pulling away.
‘Yes, I come bearing plenty of comfort food, as requested,’ Tiffany said with a laugh as she entered the lounge room. ‘Thanks so much for having me in my hour of need. Bloody weather.’ She sat down on the nearest lounge.
‘You’re welcome,’ Steve said. ‘But will your horses be okay?’
‘Yeah, they’ve got plenty to eat and they can go into the shelter. Right, I have chips – salt and vinegar, barbecue and corn,’ she said, pulling out the bags and putting them on the coffee table. ‘Chocolate – dark, milk and white. And a couple of Cherry Ripe bars. I wasn’t sure what level of crisis we’re facing here. And finally, the ice-cream – honeycomb, chocolate and strawberry.’ She extracted three small tubs. ‘So, what’s the emergency?’
Jessica wondered briefly if Tiffany realised she’d brought everything in lots of threes – well, except for the Cherry Ripe bars. If she wasn’t so intent on staring at the food and stopping herself drooling, she might have pointed it out.
‘Wow, you’ve thought of everything. Thanks so much. I’ll put the ice-cream in the freezer for later,’ Steve said, gathering the pots up.
‘Can you bring back four bowls, darling?’
‘You know dinner’s almost ready?’ Steve said, handing over the bowls.
‘Yeah, I know. But I’m starving,’ she said. She wasn’t hungry at all – that was a lie. This yearning was coming from her mouth – her tastebuds – rather than down in her stomach. She tore open the bag of salt and vinegar chips and tipped some into one of the bowls. She rather fancied diving head first into the bag, but restrained herself. She then broke up some squares of each variety of chocolate and piled them into a bowl, watched on by Steve and Tiffany, who didn’t seem interested in the food at all. Their loss. She noticed they were exchanging shrugs and raised eyebrows. But she didn’t care, she couldn’t stop herself if she wanted to. Some strong, unknown force had taken over.
Unable to decide between white chocolate – weird when she actually preferred dark – and the chips, she made a sandwich out of both, and shoved it in her mouth.
‘Oh my God, it’s heavenly,’ she tried to say through her full mouth, but suspected it just sounded like a rumble. Orgasmic was the word. Jesus, it was good. Who would have thought?
‘Are you okay?’ Tiffany asked. ‘Steve said on the phone something had happened. What’s going on?’
Jessica told her cattle-moving story to Tiffany, who gradually became more and more bug-eyed. A few times the emotion threatened to engulf her, but she distr
acted herself from it with more chip and chocolate sandwiches.
‘Try it, it’s so good,’ she urged. But Steve and Tiffany just watched her as if she had suddenly grown an extra head. She shrugged at their disinterest.
Finally Jessica told Tiffany about phoning the retirement village and why, and learning of Mrs Rowntree’s demise. And then the tears started. But this time they were short-lived – like a wave sweeping through.
‘It’s okay,’ she said, flapping her arm. ‘I guess it just wasn’t meant to be.’
‘I’m sure she’s up there somewhere and knows anyway,’ Tiffany said kindly.
‘Maybe.’
Jessica’s junk food binge was interrupted by the ding of the oven timer signalling their dinner was ready.
Looking down at her meal, she felt a little queasy. She really shouldn’t have eaten all that crap. She found it hard to believe she actually had. It was so out of character. Oh, well, too late now. Unless she threw up, an event that was appearing more and more likely. She forced the thought aside and concentrated on cutting her chicken up and moving it and the rice around her plate to try to disguise her reluctance to eat it.
‘Someone’s ruined their dinner,’ Tiffany chided.
‘Hmm.’ Jessica couldn’t understand it; apricot chicken was one of her all-time favourites, but she could barely look at it. And the smell really was making her feel ill.
‘Are you okay?’ Tiffany and Steve said, in unison.
‘Yeah, I’m fine,’ she said. Though that was a lie too. She felt all out of kilter. And something told her it wasn’t from the chips and chocolate. She hadn’t had that much, when she thought about it. She noticed Tiffany and Steve were staring at her with thoughtful, knowing expressions.
‘What?’ she demanded. ‘Have I got chocolate on my face, or something?’ She rubbed her cheeks vigorously.
‘Um, you’re not pregnant are you?’ Tiffany said.
‘Don’t be silly,’ she said quickly. ‘Why would you …?’ Slowly the pennies began to drop – the mood swings, the tears, the cravings. She wasn’t sure about the queasiness – didn’t you actually throw up with morning sickness?
Leap of Faith Page 27
