As she wound over river crossings and up around mountain turns, she began to long for the warmth of her bed. She imagined pulling Charlie to her. Making love to him until morning. Then the realisation came that she’d have to be up early to collect the boys from the neighbour. Then she needed to make smoko for the crutching and jetting crew, who were coming with their portable unit at nine to treat the ewes. She grimaced with disappointment.
Were Saturday mornings like that in other people’s lives? Wouldn’t most people be sleeping in? Television cartoons for the kids while the parents lay in bed cuddling, reading newspapers and eating toast and drinking tea?
She loved her farming life, she loved her boys, but some days she wondered how on earth there’d be time for just her and Charlie? Other farming families went camping together, didn’t they? Water-skiing in the summer, snow-skiing in the winter, country-music concerts on weekends, dinner parties on Saturday nights with neighbours? But not the Lewises. Charlie was happy with the pub, footy and cricket-training booze-ups and satisfied with his machinery shed and the fridge, bar and potbelly stove he’d installed for himself there. And he had his trips to the mountain hut with Muzz for hunting.
In the ute in the darkness, she spoke out loud. ‘What do I do, Tom?’ she asked the empty night, wishing her brother was still with her for quiet counsel. Suddenly, thinking back to Tom and his death, she felt like crying.
The old Hilux gave a chug and the engine cut out to silence, wheels crunching over the newly sealed road, rolling to a stop. As she peered out of the window, she guessed she was still about fifteen Ks from home and about fifteen Ks from the nearest farm, which was Rivermont, where newly constructed white fences flanked the roadside.
‘What? C’mon, girl!’ Bec said to the ute as she tried the ignition again with no luck. She sat dumbfounded. She’d told Charlie the ute needed a service — the oil light was glowing far too often these days. She turned to the passenger seat, where she expected to find the Woolies bag containing her own clothes and boots. ‘Bugger!’ she said: she’d left the bag in Gabs’s Landy. She didn’t even bother to look at her phone. She knew she’d be out of range on this part of the mountain.
She fished around in the grubby space behind the seats, looking for the oil container she remembered putting there months ago. All she could find was an old green high-vis vest with a silver reflector strip and the kids’ orange ‘Fright Night’ torch from a Halloween party at Ursula’s last October.
Still in her hooker’s costume, Rebecca got out of the ute, looked down at herself and laughed. It was rather funny, standing in stilettos as she pulled on the green fluoro vest. It offered small relief from the cold. A shiver shook through her body as she lifted the bonnet. She shone the torch into the engine and cursed Charlie: there was not only no oil, but very little coolant. Was it her job to check these things? Before the kids, yes, it had been, she reasoned; but surely now, how could Charlie expect her to think of every little thing? As she looked about in the ute tray for a water container or even a pair of boots so she could walk comfortably to Rivermont, she accidentally bumped one of the buttons on the ‘Fright Night’ torch and suddenly a ghoulish voice was echoing into the night. The voice screamed, then moaned, ‘Heeelp me! Heelp me!’
‘Shut up!’ she said, prodding at the buttons, this time causing a witch’s cauldron to bubble and a cackle to emanate from the torch. It was giving her the creeps. She didn’t know whether to laugh or cry.
Giving up, she got into the cab and tugged the vest about her, trying to snuggle into the grimy seat to catch a wink of sleep before someone came by in the morning or Charlie noticed her missing. Not long after she dozed off, her eyes sprang open to see in the side mirrors the tops of the trees illuminated in the distance behind her. A car was coming. At this time of night? On this road?
She got out of the vehicle, wrapped the vest about her torso and flashed the torch in the direction of the car. A gigantic, shiny black Kluger four-wheel drive pulled up beside her and slowly the window slid down, revealing a classically handsome man, complete with a flattering amount of facial stubble on his olive skin. He was looking her up and down with a slightly amused expression on his rather smug face. The man was wearing a dark woollen coat that was turned up at the collar and Bec thought he looked like a mysterious traveller you’d find on a European train platform in the 1930s, not on a back road to Bendoorin. From the glow of the dash, his dark eyes seemed to mock her a little.
‘Broken down, have we?’ he said in a rather haughty deep voice that was coloured with an accent that Rebecca thought sounded like Puss in Boots from the Shrek films. ‘At least I hope you have,’ he added, eyeing her tarty shoes and fishnets.
‘Well, I’m not looking for business, if that’s what you’re implying,’ Rebecca said snappily. ‘I’ve been to a fancy-dress party and I need to get home to Waters Meeting.’
‘That is a relief. You’d better get in then.’
‘And you are?’ Rebecca asked, trying to sound dignified and not at all insulted that the man thought she wouldn’t make a very good lady of the night.
‘Sol. Sol Stanton. We’ve just moved into Rivermont. I can run you home, but I’d better call into Yazzie first and let her know I’ve arrived. My phone won’t operate in these mountains. She’ll be worried sick.’
‘Fine. That would be great, thank you. I’m Rebecca Lewis.’ Just as she said it, she bumped the button on the torch and it promptly gave a werewolf howl. ‘Sorry. Kids’ torch,’ she said, pulling an embarrassed face. ‘All I could find.’
Sol Stanton looked again at her with a mix of pity and amusement. ‘Just get in.’ Then he muttered, ‘Mierda.’ That might have been Spanish, but she knew, whatever he said, it wasn’t good. She wanted to say rudely, ‘Only because I have to, Mr “You may have a Kluger, but you haven’t got a clue”,’ but in silence she stomped around to the passenger side and tried as best she could in Gabs’s poorly stitched sequined miniskirt, once a six-year-old’s dance dress, to look ladylike as she climbed aboard. Instead her thighs in her now laddered fishnets squelched on the real-deal leather interior and she heard the skirt rip noisily along the seams that ran over her backside.
As they turned off the road and drove along the recently renovated drive to Rivermont, Rebecca was awestruck at the changes there. Their power bill for one must’ve been huge. No wonder the Stantons had installed their own wind tower on the western side of the farm. French Provincial-style lamps lined the driveway, illuminating elegant oak trees and elms at least ten metres tall that had been trucked in. Two dozen of them now lined the wide drive like a welcoming committee for the Royal Family. The understorey beneath them had been laid with instant lawn, which sprawled richly like carpet and was lit by low solar lights. But more incredible was the transformation of the classical old Rivermont homestead. It was how Rebecca’s own Waters Meeting could have looked, had the seasons been better and the money flowed. Had Charlie been easier to motivate, she thought bitterly. Or, more likely, she reasoned, if I wasn’t so weighted down with my own sorry self. If only, if only … Why, despite her struggle and hard work, did her lifelong dreams seem to constantly wither and die before they’d even reached the budding stage?
A gasp of admiration almost escaped her when she saw the illuminated homestead extensions helped along warmly from the lights within the home. A glass conservatory had been added, and what looked like an entire wing of rooms flanked by a verandah that perfectly matched the original.
‘You’ve done some work on the place,’ she said, trying to make conversation, intimidated by Sol Stanton’s silent haughty presence. He didn’t answer, his dark eyes fixed on the road ahead. Bec suddenly felt foolish. State the bleedin’ obvious, Rebecca, she thought crossly.
As they swung past the box hedges and softly lit fountain complete with elegant bronze racehorse statue, she was met with the lovely vision of a gently floodlit old stone barn that had been decked out and extended into what looked to be state-of-the-art stables. Reflecting the yard light beside that was a brand-new Colorbond shed with giant air-conditioners on the side. The