by Jennie Jones
Edie waited while Ryan did his checks and locked up, feeling relieved that he was here with her and she didn’t have to spend each night on her own, wondering if Marcus was creeping around outside, with a gun in his pocket. Not that she could envisage Marcus wanting to get his polished shoes grubby or his tailored trousers covered in dandelion fluff as he snuck around a neglected country property in the dark. But still …
She turned, taking her attention to other matters, and blocking out Zenda’s words: A producer is going to get shot and the detective is to blame, which were suddenly ringing in her head.
How would, let alone could, Marcus get shot? Unless it was someone he’d pissed off and there were bound to be dozens if not hundreds of those. And why would Damien have told Marcus where she was? It didn’t make sense. She’d have to speak to Tony again. She didn’t dare call Damien because she might get annoyed with him and not be able to hide it—he was so sensitive to a person’s tone of voice.
She paused mid-thought when she noticed a pile of brochures on the floor, poking out from under an old chest of drawers they were going to use to store small costume props, like jewellery and handbags.
She bent and picked up two brochures, but had to kneel down and push her hand under the chest to reach the others.
Her heart got a hammering when she read the titles and realised what the brochures were about.
PTSD: self-help; coping tips; symptoms
Trauma and PTSD: effects; causes; signs and statistics
Her hand shook as she stared at the brochures. There were about half a dozen in all. Ryan didn’t show any signs of PTSD. Not that she could list all the symptoms, but Tony had taken a television role once, playing a war veteran, and Edie had helped him with his lines and with his research. Tony’s performance had been moving, bringing tears to Edie’s eyes. He was full of stoic tragedy until the character couldn’t cope any longer.
But Ryan wasn’t suffering in any way she could classify as having symptoms of past trauma. Although he did get a bit tetchy—just a little—if he was interrupted while watching the ABC news. He didn’t appear to have any signs of sleep deprivation. He could fall asleep on a park bench. He wasn’t easily startled. You could creep up on him and shout ‘Boo’ and he’d just turn and raise an eyebrow … What was she thinking! He’d grabbed her when he hadn’t realised she was behind him. If he hadn’t been so in tune and so highly trained mentally, he could have easily snapped her in half or broken her neck.
Not many people realised how dangerous it was to be a Second Commando. Ryan never offered information, but he told her once that his regiment were the sledgehammers. Ryan and his boys would go in, clear up—or whatever horrendous things they had to do—and get out. Hard hitting, shock action; that’s the way Ryan explained his job when she’d asked him.
It had sent a shiver down her spine, but Ryan had only smiled and asked if she was going to be sick.
That’s how he defused, or kept himself apart, she supposed. Offering a glib or dismissive response, followed by a smile and a change of subject.
That brought up another thought, and one that humbled her. He said he’d take on the building of the stage because he was currently at a loose end. Why had he chosen to spend his loose-end days in Swallow’s Fall when he was obviously under such pressure? She’d stupidly thought he was only tormenting her with his attitude, not to mention his Special-Forces, strong-muscled look. But it must be because he’d come home to Gemma. His mother usually lived in Perth with her second husband but they’d been in Germany for a few years now, something to do with the husband’s job. Poor Ryan. He’d come to Swallow’s Fall to find a place he could recuperate, or maybe forget—and she’d been uppity with him and then got him involved in all the nonsense that was her pathetic life. Career? She ought to be ashamed of herself. Who cared about a career when a friend was in trouble?
He can’t not be at your side, Edie. You comfort him.
Why hadn’t he told her about this? Was he getting professional help?
Still on her knees, she sat back. He didn’t even have a father he could talk to. Well, he had one, but Ryan and Gemma hated him. Nigel Munroe had hurt people in Swallow’s Fall a long time ago. He’d hurt his son too. Ryan had run away from his father’s home at the age of fifteen and hadn’t been heard of for over a year. He never went back.
Maybe he’d like to talk to her dad? Ethan would be marvellous. Or Nick—did Nick know about Ryan’s problem? It was more than a tall issue as far as Edie was concerned. This was serious stuff—stuff she had no idea about, let alone how to handle.
He needs stability, Edie. He’s going through a difficult time.
Did Gemma know? Edie doubted it, otherwise Gem wouldn’t have been so casual about the healing bracelets. A bracelet wasn’t going to help Ryan recover from whatever his trauma had been any more than a nice cup of tea would.
She checked over her shoulder, but Ryan was still locking up. She could hear him putting the wooden bars across the front doors. Then he’d check that the sound and lighting board was switched off and turn off the barn lights.
She stood, shoved the brochures into the bottom drawer of the chest and took a few moments to think about a memory that had suddenly come to the fore.
Ryan had visited Swallow’s Fall on a few Anzac Days over the years, and he and Nick would run the barbecue breakfast. They’d be up well before dawn, getting the area around the cenotaph by the pioneer cemetery ready. They’d stand shoulder to shoulder during the short ceremony. Afterwards, they’d cook and serve bacon and eggs to the townspeople. Olivia’s father would open Kookaburra’s and everyone got free tea and coffee—or maybe a hot toddy. Nick and Ryan would slip off and share a quiet drink in the back room of the hardware store.
Edie didn’t know whether they talked about comrades they’d lost, or just sat silently, saluting their buddies with a half bottle of whisky. Nor would she ask. It was their business and personal. Their own form of remembrance.
It made her want to cry.
Then they’d turn up in Kookaburra’s, and no-one would notice them behaving any differently from usual. But often Edie wondered what feelings they were hiding.
She roused herself, stood up, and stared out at the back of the stage she’d instructed be built for her use. Not anyone else’s use—just hers. She’d struck an idea and had followed through, simply to amuse herself. Or keep herself occupied while she went through the daunting process of having to decide who she was, what she really wanted, and how to go about getting it.
Whatever was going on with these brochures Ryan had collected, she’d try to be more understanding. A lot more understanding.
I served my time in hell.
As far as she was concerned, the army had a lot to answer for.
After locking up the barn, Ryan walked Edie over to the kitchen. She’d gone quiet, probably because of the problems she was facing and also from what he’d advised her: that he would be by her side day and night and that a guy called Killer was on the case too. Maybe he shouldn’t have mentioned Vince, but he didn’t want to keep too much from her. He needed her to understand that he and others were doing something about Buchanan. The man was continuing to hound Edie with the rumours, but what concerned Ryan most was how far Buchanan might have gone to make contact with the man called Hanger.
‘So I’ll kip on a sofa in the hall, outside your bedroom,’ he said. He glanced at the table but Edie had already gathered the cups and plates and other paraphernalia like pencils and erasers and put them away.
‘That’s ridiculous,’ she said, turning from the fire and the dying embers in the hearth.
‘It’s not ridiculous. I told you, I’m not going to be far from you.’
‘Ryan, are you armed?’
‘No.’ He wondered what might be going through her mind but couldn’t come up with anything.
‘I don’t think you should be in charge of a gun. Anyway, it’s not legal unless you have a proper licence.’
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‘I don’t have a gun, Edie.’ If he needed to tackle whoever Buchanan was sending out here, he’d do it physically, or with any make-do weapon he happened to have to hand. Like the camping survival four-in-one knife, shovel, axe and saw that he kept in his four-wheel drive for emergencies. This morning, two of those shovels had found their way into the house, with one in an unused shoe cupboard by the kitchen door, and the other he’d hide under the old sofa up on the first-floor landing that he intended to place outside Edie’s bedroom.
She was giving the gun issue a great deal of thought, going by her concentrated expression and the frown. Then she looked up at him, studying him questioningly, but with sadness in her eyes.
‘Is it hard, losing someone out there, in the battle zones?’ The question surprised him. ‘Yes.’
‘How do you cope?’
‘It hits people in different ways.’
‘That’s not an answer.’
‘No,’ he agreed, but didn’t go into further detail. She didn’t need to know how hard it was.
‘You know that problem you told me you had—is it from your army days?’
Where was this heading? ‘No.’
‘I just wondered if you had bad dreams. Or nightmares.’
He couldn’t blame her being worried about him after the way he’d grabbed her that morning. But he didn’t want her to feel concerned when she was around him. He gave her a smile. ‘Only if you’ve got the blower-vac in your hands, Dazzlepants.’
His answer must have settled her because she gave him a half laugh, full smile. He returned it. ‘Don’t worry, Edie. You’re okay around me. That—’ He indicated her throat. ‘When I caught hold of you—that was an error on my part. I promise it won’t happen again.’
‘You didn’t hurt me.’ She surprised the daylight out of him by smiling softly, a second before she walked forwards, leaned up and kissed his cheek.
‘Well,’ he said, baffled. ‘Thanks.’
‘That’s just so you know I care.’
But it wasn’t only her care he wanted. He was content to wait around in the wings for her. She needed time, and he’d grant her that, but the concern worrying its way into his head was that one day soon, he’d have to back down and leave her be. At the moment he was pushing her gently towards what he wanted, but it was still a push. She might not think that fair. She was dealing with so much since Buchanan had put her career on hold, but he didn’t know if she wanted to go back to the way her life had been, or if she was having doubts about her illustrious lifestyle.
‘I’m not the only one who cares about you,’ she said. ‘There are so many people you can talk to.’
‘But I like talking to you.’
‘I wouldn’t be any good at it. I don’t understand how awful it must be.’
‘How awful what must be?’
‘All the things you’ve—you know. Anyway, I don’t think we understand each other anymore.’
He couldn’t have put it better.
‘It’s not like it used to be between us,’ she continued. ‘And I don’t want to get anything wrong. You’re too important to me—to everyone.’
He had no idea what she was referring to, but in that instant, he knew what he had to do to fix this wavelength issue between them.
17
Down Memory Lane on a Harley
‘Want to go for a ride?’
Edie paused and looked up from the sink where she was washing the cast-iron pan she’d used to make fried eggs and sliced ham sandwiches for a late lunch. Ryan and Josh had been working all morning, putting stage frames together, but Josh had left a half-hour ago.
Ryan stood in the doorway to the hall, wearing his jeans and big boots, with his leather jacket hooked on a finger and thrown over his shoulder.
‘You haven’t been on a horse for years,’ she said. ‘Neither have I.’ She’d always made an excuse whenever Viv or her dad suggested a ride. There was always some fabulous part she was playing or about to audition for, and a broken leg or a horse bite would have ruined everything. ‘And, I don’t really have time.’ There was only four weeks before curtain up and she still had a lot to do. Except maybe fresh air would do Ryan good after being stuck in the barn building her stage.
‘I meant my bike,’ he said.
‘Oh.’ He’d kept his Harley at Gemma’s all these years. He used to tinker with it every time he came for a visit. But he’d brought it to the house when he moved in. Not that he’d had time to ride—since he was busy chauffeuring her around and building her stage.
She dried her hands on a dish towel. Would this just make him more dependent on her? She could only comfort him so much without wanting to wrap her arms around his neck and whisper in his ear that it was going to be all right. But if he really wanted to take her for a spin, it would be heavenly being on the bike with him.
‘I’m not taking no for an answer,’ he said. ‘I’ll get you a helmet. Put your sneakers on if you don’t have leather boots. And wear a warm jacket,’ he added as he walked outside.
No matter how hard she tried to contain her excitement, it rumbled inside her and prickled her skin. Taking time off and grabbing some fresh air. On a Harley, with Ryan ‘Grit’ Munroe.
Ryan brought the bike to a halt and Edie thanked God she’d worn her thick cardigan beneath her thin jacket. The wind chill factor on the hillside above the pastures and farmland had been exhilarating but she’d forgotten to bring a scarf and gloves.
It was rugged and isolated this far up, and they’d stopped in an area of open forest. Edie figured she’d still know her way around. Sometimes, the maps in a child’s mind didn’t need to be topographical or even drawn or written down. Not when the area had been your playground.
The yellow box and forest red gum welcomed her, just as the family home on Burra Burra Lane had, and when she looked up, craning her neck skywards, the swaying boughs of silvertop ash and snow gums waved back at her.
This was Swallow’s Fall’s own part of the High Country, hardly trekked or driven through except by the locals. It calmed the soul, and impressed the eye—plus, there was Ryan to hold on to.
‘What are we doing up here?’ she asked, raising her voice so he’d hear her.
‘We’re taking a trip down memory lane,’ he said, as the thrum of his Harley Davidson juddered beneath them, like an underscore in a road-trip movie.
‘This is where we used to bring your gang of school friends and you insisted on playing hide and seek,’ he said. ‘You promised me fifty cents if I looked the other way every time I found you.’
She smiled. So she had, many times.
‘By my reckoning, you still owe me thirty bucks.’
She nodded, lost in the memory and happy to recall those fun, adventurous times when she was a kid and Ryan not quite a young man.
He gave her no more than fifteen seconds to relive that memory before they were off again, Edie clinging onto him a little tighter because his body was warm and her hands were freezing.
An invigorating half-hour later, he slowed and pulled the bike up, putting a foot out to steady them once they stopped.
He nodded over the hedge on All Seasons Road towards the paddock beyond. Her family house was on the other side of the crest of rolling fields.
‘There’s your tree.’
Oh, lord. The big old gum tree. Sammy had tied ribbons to it for her eleventh birthday party. Edie could even tell which limb she’d climbed up on—it was pretty high. Sadly, she could also describe which limbs she’d bumped against on her fast descent and which limb she’d snagged her knickers on.
Ryan turned at the shoulder to look at her. His face was creased with humour. ‘Remember that, Dazzlepants?’
She pulled a face.
His torso shook with his laugh and the vibration rang through her as he faced forwards and drove off.
She found a grin, and settled her cheek against his back while clinging on tight.
It didn’t take long to reach the ri
ver and she knew where he was heading. To their fishing spot. They used to cycle there, or sometimes ride horses from her dad’s stables. It was a breeding stream, so they’d never taken more than two brown trout between them, even though Edie had been the better fisherman—or woman. She’d been brought up fishing the river. Her mother had taught her.
‘Let’s take a break,’ he said, and switched the engine off.
Edie slid off the two-up seat, happy to stretch her legs and warm her hands. It wasn’t so nippy by the river. She took her helmet off and shook her hair free.
Ryan put their helmets onto the seat as Edie wandered over to their old picnic spot.
She sank to the grass beneath a big old gum tree, hugged her knees, and gazed over the narrow stream known as the Maclaughlin River.
‘Good to see it in full swell,’ Ryan said as he sat beside her. ‘Still lovely, isn’t it?’
‘I hope it always will be,’ she murmured. ‘Long after we’ve gone.’
They enjoyed the view for a while, and the occasional slap and swirl of the slate-blue water as it ran through the grassy knoll, the silence between them comfortable. This is what he needed, she thought—fresh air, comforting silence, and a chance to heal from his troubles. Maybe she could bring the subject up now, while they were at ease with each other, and while the stillness wrapped them both in some kind of completeness, and honesty.
‘Ryan?’ she began, tentatively.
‘Mmm?’ he asked as he lay back on the grass, his hands behind his head and one leg bent at the knee.
‘I found your brochures.’ She held her breath, waiting for his response.
He turned his head her way but she couldn’t see his eyes beneath his sunglasses. Then he propped himself on one elbow and pushed his sunglasses to the top of his head. ‘And?’