The Drifter Page 7

  Cate glanced at her father, who was staring woodenly back. He’d obviously been told to keep his mouth shut and he was keeping his end of the bargain, but it was nearly killing him, and Cate could hear him anyway so it really didn’t matter. You’re a disappointment. A crashing disappointment, and I think we both know that pussyfooting around won’t change that. You’ve done something unspeakably stupid. And you can’t fix it.

  Her head had begun nodding because she already knew.

  ‘Darling, have you called Helen Dowling? She needs to run through things with you.’

  Cate felt sorry for her mother, pretending they could fix this as easily as they had found the ten thousand dollars they had put up as bond. Her mum thought Helen was going to make this go away. But it was never going to go away, whether Cate called her or not. Guilt over Brigit, and over the money, gnawed at her.

  ‘Yeah, Mum. I called her. She seems very nice.’ She smiled gratefully at her father, but the deep concern didn’t shift from his expression.

  ‘We really need to get onto this, Catie,’ her mother warned. ‘You can’t just pretend it didn’t happen.’

  ‘I know.’ If Cate knew one thing, it was that. ‘Anyway,’ she added quickly, ‘I’ve gotta go and feed the chooks.’ Her parents looked surprised. It wasn’t a statement they had ever imagined she’d make. Neither had she.

  ‘Have you spoken to Ghadah and Seth?’ her father prompted as she edged guiltily through the door.

  ‘No.’

  His eyebrows dropped. ‘They lost their daughter, Cate —’

  She was gone.

  Cate picked up a bag of ground coffee at the café, some groceries and a stainless-steel coffee pot while she was in town. At least she could make her own. She pulled out of the car park and headed for home, and away from her well-meaning parents, her gut churning with anxiety and her heart heavy.

  Henry was feeding the chooks when she pulled up at the farm. He looked pretty dusty; his beard was almost grey.

  ‘What happened?’ she asked.

  ‘What?’ He looked confused.

  ‘Did the farm explode?’

  He looked down and smiled. ‘Oh, just fixed a couple of gates up the race,’ he admitted.

  Well, good old Henry.

  ‘Thought I’d do the chooks in case you were late.’ He shut the gate. ‘How is she?’

  ‘Good. Going to Perth for more tests and stuff.’ Cate dragged the box of food and coffee out of the back seat.

  ‘What do they reckon they’re going to find?’

  She shrugged. ‘An old lady’s heart? I don’t know, maybe there’s something they can do. I think the heart attack did her more damage than she’s admitting to.’

  He followed her, then paused at the door.

  ‘Come in,’ she said.

  ‘No thanks. I’ll be getting back.’

  ‘To what, exactly?’

  He was already walking away. She got a load of his shoulders as he moved, and, if she was honest, she checked out his backside as well. Maybe it was the coffee, but something gave her a jolt.

  Inside, Cate made some calls about shearing, cleaned the house for a few hours and fell in front of an old-lady drama on the ABC, at which point she remembered her new coffee pot. Fantastic.

  She went into the newly decluttered kitchen and fired it up, dancing mindlessly about as it hissed steam through the beans. The scent alone was worth it. She heated milk on the stove and added both elements to the largest mug she could find. It was heaven. It was hers. For the first time that day she felt as if her life didn’t suck. Late that night, as the stars slowly drifted from the dark night sky, she fell into bed and waited for the curlew to call to her from the bush.

  ‘Can I smell coffee?’ Cate woke to the sound of Mac asking about coffee. No, probably not Mac.

  She sat up, pulled on a shirt and jeans and headed out the front. She found Henry sitting on the verandah, with his arm around the only animal on the farm hairier than himself. They looked like they had been sharing grooming tips, and now they were caught out they were a little embarrassed.

  ‘Yes, it is. Let me make you a cup. Please.’

  He hesitated.

  She threw her hands up. ‘Are you a FREAKING VAMPIRE? Come in, and stop being such a great big fucking freak.’

  He looked stunned, and Mac joined him.

  ‘Okay. Jeez, what is it? Bit grumpy before our first coffee, are we?’

  ‘Come in for a coffee or go jump in a billabong – either way,’ she grumbled, and left. He followed.

  She quickly got the pot on and sat at the table looking through Aunty Ida’s stock book.

  ‘What’s going on? Are we shearing or what?’

  She looked at him. ‘Is that why you were hanging around? You’ve been avoiding me for days and now you’re here ready to work?’

  His face was set. ‘Yep.’

  She looked up at him. He seemed too large for the room. She could smell soap. She glanced at his hands; her mother had always said you could tell a gentleman by his fingernails, and she was right. His were filthy.

  ‘But I wasn’t avoiding you.’

  She gestured impatiently. ‘Yeah, whatever. I’ve called the local shearing team and they say they can come next week. I’m just trying to work out how many sheep we’re carrying.’

  He stood, found the milk and poured a large splash into a small saucepan to heat it, just as the pot started hissing. She watched him, moving about her, quietly finding what he needed. He filled two mugs with hot coffee and warm milk.

  ‘Sugar?’ he asked.

  She shook her head. He took half a spoon for himself, and the sun shone through the window, making the hairs along his arm glow softly as he took his first sip. He smiled. ‘Not bad.’

  She grinned back and tasted her own. ‘If we go okay, Aunty Ida says we can probably get it done in three days. She sold most of the sheep a while ago.’

  He listened to her without bothering to respond for a moment.

  ‘How many shearers coming?’ he asked.

  ‘Two and a rousie, I think.’

  ‘I can take a stand if you like.’

  ‘You can shear?’

  ‘A bit. I’m not that good. I might be more use in the yards, but I’m also cheaper than your average shearer.’

  ‘How much cheaper?’

  ‘I’m free.’

  ‘Well, thanks.’

  ‘Don’t thank me – that was our deal. You let me stay, and I help out.’ He stood up and downed the rest of the coffee. ‘Let me know which mobs you want brought in first.’

  She nodded. ‘And I’ll find out what we need for shearing. Wool packs, um – I have no idea.’

  He turned back from the kitchen door, blocking the light for a moment. ‘How hard can it be?’ He smiled.

  A few days later Cate put on Ida’s hat for inspiration, lifted Mac unceremoniously onto the back of the ute and went up the race, setting the gates for shearing the next day. She had decided to do the mob right out at the back first because they looked particularly woolly. The race made everything easy; it ran almost the entire spine of the farm, allowing movement of stock and vehicles without endless gates, or fishing sheep out of corners and hiding places behind dams.

  Satisfied all the gates along the race were closed, she headed back to the sheds to set up the sheep yards. She wouldn’t put them in the sheds yet, but Ida had assured her they would be fine in the yards for half a day or so. She stopped the ute and climbed out as Henry approached.

  ‘Where have you been?’ he asked, looking disgruntled.

  She grabbed Mac around the waist and lowered him gently to the ground, while he pretended it wasn’t happening.

  ‘Setting the gates,’ she replied.

  He fell into step with her, heading towards the shed. She wondered how tall he was. At least six foot four. She’d noticed an old EH Holden she assumed was his behind the hay shed. Maybe he’d been moving around for a while. Slowly, because his car was wors
e than hers.

  ‘How do you know about stuff like setting gates?’ he asked.

  ‘Well, firstly, it’s not rocket science, and secondly, Ida’s on the phone to me for at least an hour a night. Which is fine, but it does take a while. She sends her regards, by the way.’

  He smiled. ‘Send them back.’ He glanced at her hat. ‘Nice hat.’

  ‘Ida’s. I’m trying to fool the sheep into thinking that I know what’s going on.’

  He put his hand on her back for a second, then took it away. ‘You’re doing fine.’

  Irrational pleasure swept through her. She was doing fine.

  ‘Cate! Cate! Quick – I need your dress. Take it off!’

  ‘Huh?’ Cate, Brigit and Madonna were conducting a thorough champagne tasting in a garden bar, the sun was shining, and Madonna was confessing her latest date disaster. Brigit bounced up and down, and waved her phone.

  ‘Charlie Grebert just texted – he wants to take me out for dinner at The Factory!’

  ‘Charlie the stockbroker with the apartment pretty much exactly on the Swan River?’

  ‘That’s him!’

  Cate was impressed. Brigit had been obsessing over the guy for nearly a year. ‘But why not wear your jeans? You look great, and they look kind of small.’

  Brigit rolled her eyes. ‘Babe, these are hardly man bait! Quick – toilets. We’re swapping. You may have to suck it in.’

  ‘Do you have to be so skinny?’ Cate complained.

  Madonna finished her glass. ‘Does no one want to hear what happens when you boil sausage rolls?’ she said, amazed.

  ‘Back in a sec, Madge!’

  They were stripped, and before long Cate was trying to pull up Brigit’s jeans. They were pretty tight; she sucked in, then sucked in a bit more, then wished she knew a yoga technique for moving internal organs.

  ‘Bridge,’ she gasped, ‘this may not work. Why couldn’t you have had a fashion emergency BEFORE I got through two bowls of wedges and a dozen champagnes?’

  ‘Sorry, mate. How about I give you my earrings? Permanent loan?’

  ‘No. They’re your graduation present. I couldn’t.’

  ‘’Course you could. You love them because they’re so shiny – and they’re real.’

  ‘Wow, that’s really sweet of you. I’ll give them back.’

  ‘When you’ve finished with them, Cate. No hurry. We’re going to know each other a long time!’

  ‘Not if I rupture something, we’re not.’

  ‘Ha! Well, at least you’ll own some decent diamonds before you check out.’

  ‘I just hope this is worth it.’

  Brigit was perched on a toilet fighting with the blue dress, one arm sticking almost straight out of her head because she’d done up the zip. Her long dark-chocolate hair was pushed across her face and was erupting out of the neckline of the dress, and her skin was golden. ‘Of course it is – Charlie is a man of mystery, and recently improved taste in women.’

  Cate rolled her eyes, in case the action would help hitch up her pancreas more.

  ‘And anyway, you’ve got Maddox hanging on your every word,’ Brigit continued.

  ‘Not anymore.’

  Brigit’s hand, which had been waving about like a determined flag, fell still. ‘Huh?’

  ‘He’s sleeping with that Pixie chick from his office.’

  ‘The bitchy one?’

  ‘Yeah.’

  ‘Dumb name.’ The hand was moving again, and it was making headway, finding the zip and getting it down enough for her head to pop through the neck of the dress.

  ‘She didn’t name herself.’ Cate huffed one more time.

  ‘She may as well have, and she’s a boring control freak, anyway, not at all like clever you, who can shrink down to almost nothing in an absolute emergency.’

  ‘Yeah, well, she’s obviously a lot more interesting than me because Maddox is taking her down south next weekend.’ Cate’s voice had started to wobble. Damn it. She hadn’t wanted to care so much, and she hadn’t wanted it to show. She blinked and shook her head to snap out of it before Brigit noticed, and her backside rewarded her bravery by allowing her to do up the zipper on the jeans.

  ‘Well!’ Brigit was now smoothing the dress down, and it looked fantastic on her. ‘He is obviously a complete dick, and he deserves her, and if he lapses into a coma during dinner – OR SEX – it’ll be his own silly fault.’

  Brigit dropped the earrings into her palm, where they sparkled casually, then she grabbed Cate’s hand and took her to the bar.

  ‘Another bottle of your second-cheapest champagne and another ice bucket, please!’

  ‘But Brigit – you have to go meet Charlie.’ She was fiddling with the diamonds, trying to get them in quickly so she didn’t drop them.

  Brigit scoffed. ‘Charlie? Nah – I just remembered he’s got a wonky tooth. Have you ever noticed?’

  Cate shrugged. ‘I really can’t say that I have.’

  Brigit had her next bottle in hand. ‘Well, he has. It’s creepy. I’m better off here with you, quite frankly, you and your teeny-tiny jeans.’

  When they reached the table, Madonna was onto a platter of spicy prawns, and she held one up in greeting.

  ‘Just in time!’ she said, and Brigit poured them all another glass of champagne.

  ‘Let’s drink to us,’ Brigit declared. ‘To fabulous friends, with clever brains and amazing shrinking bums!’

  CHAPTER 10

  They spent the next few hours sorting out the shearing shed: Henry swept the floors, and Cate unpacked the shearing supplies Ida and Reg from the co-op had assured her they’d need. She glanced into an empty corner.

  ‘Uh, I think we’ll need the fridge back for a few days.’

  Henry grinned. ‘Okay, but look after her. She keeps my beer cold.’

  She rolled her eyes. ‘Bring her back, and you can keep your stuff in the bottom. Maybe shove anything that won’t fit into my fridge for a while.’

  ‘I’ll be fine,’ he said quickly. It sounded weird, and he knew it. Henry was being weird again. She wasn’t about to wonder why.

  ‘Whatever. I’m seriously not invested in whether your lettuce goes limp. You decide.’ She was fed up. Suddenly, she wanted to be with her friends again. She decided on the spot that she was due for a trip to Perth. She could see the girls (and boys), visit Aunty Ida and have some fun. She could get her hair cut and do real, non-shearing-related shopping.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ he began, his large body looking awkward.

  ‘Don’t be – it’s a fridge.’

  Maybe she’d get highlights. And go to the Bookclub Bar to check out new reading matter, and drinks that didn’t have beer, or tea, in them.

  The shearers arrived early. They were a bunch of skinny blokes, wearing shearing pants, blue singlets and smoking like it had just got banned. They pulled up in convoy, jumped out of their cars and set up their individual stations: back braces, radios, blades. Henry had been up early, moving about in the shed, making sure the sheep were yarded up and ready to go. Cate could hear the light rumble of hooves on the wooden boards, and the clanking of the gates as the woolly bodies pressed against them. The shearers were holding a master class in swearing.

  ‘Fuckin’ check this out.’

  ‘What the fuck?’

  ‘She fuckin’ said fuckin’ what?’

  ‘Jesus Christ – look at these woolly c––’

  Cate climbed the few steps onto the wooden floor that staged her performers.

  ‘I hope you’re not bagging my aunty’s sheep,’ she said.

  They looked back into the yards. ‘We forgot how fucking big they are.’

  ‘Surely they’re not too big for you?’ she asked.

  ‘Nah, but they’ll take longer to shear.’ The speaker held out his hand to her. ‘I’m Kiwi Dave, by the way. This is Marty, and this is Dags, our rousie. Alf will be here shortly.’

  Marty sucked a load of snot from the back of his nose t
o his mouth, then spat it down the chute. ‘We get paid per head,’ he said, by way of explanation.

  ‘Ah, I see. Oh, well, good luck. Henry might do a few here and there if he gets a chance.’ They looked at Henry, who gave them a nod.

  ‘No problem. You got your own gear?’

  ‘I found some that was here already. It’s set up on the spare chute.’

  ‘Have fun, then, mate. Don’t do your back.’

  Henry grunted.

  Cate checked the fridge was running, and the shearers strode through the saloon doors to their waiting clients, and dragged one each back, holding them by their front legs, sliding along on their fluffy bums. With a sharp tug on the rope leading to their blade switches, and a mechanical clank, the blades buzzed into life, gently carving soft, fragrant wool from the sheep, whose legs occasionally kicked and scuttled into each new position as their coats fell in one languid piece to the greasy floorboards. Cate headed back to the yards and pushed up the next mob. It was going to be a long day.

  At smoko, Kiwi Dave spoke to her. ‘I hear you met my missus,’ he said, grinning at her.

  Cate looked suspicious. ‘Are you sure? I haven’t met many people yet.’

  ‘Yeah, Sarah, the teacher. We’ve been living together for a little over six months.’

  ‘Oh, yes! I met Sarah. She seems really nice.’

  ‘Yeah, what’s she doing with you, Dave?’ There was general laughter.

  ‘Fucked if I know – I think she likes a bit of rough. All you classy chicks do.’ He gestured to Henry, who was leaning on the wall with a mug of tea.

  ‘Oh, we’re not together,’ Cate said, much to Dave’s amusement.

  ‘Of course you’re not! Don’t worry, we see it all around here – you’d be surprised.’

  Henry didn’t look amused. Jeez, he didn’t have to take the shearers so seriously. What she could see of his face was looking irritated. She paused to check him out a little longer than necessary because he was wearing a singlet, which hid his bullet hole but gave his shoulders their freedom. They looked happy to be out. Crap. How was he staying so built? Why? Who cared? She had to say, from the neck down, where sweat had rendered the cotton shirt see-through and she could see a hint of dark hair, she had to admire his . . . dedication. He swilled the rest of his tea in his mouth contemplatively, then swallowed, gazing remorselessly at Kiwi Dave, who was lighting another cigarette and didn’t appear to be too concerned. Maybe he figured his wiry body would be a small target. Cate wasn’t so sure.