She gasped. Henry was glaring at her.
‘It fell out,’ she muttered, and shoved it back again, sorry to have been caught prying.
Henry turned back to the road. She sat quietly, waiting for her heartbeat to slow.
At the nursery they found every form of plant and irrigation system they could want. It was too easy, and strangely fun. The best part came when most of the plants and equipment were kept on the ground, and Henry was just the man to pick them up. The second best part came when he bought her lunch at the pub.
‘You’re having beer,’ he said. ‘This isn’t a date.’
‘Really. You’re breaking my heart,’ she scoffed, and he laughed and took a long draught on his VB. They had steaks, great big enormous steaks. She was forced to operate on hers and donate half to him.
‘There you are – you love protein,’ she said.
He raised an eyebrow. ‘So you remember some of what happened at the pub, then?’
‘Oh, bits and pieces. Did I score a date at one point?’
‘Yes you did, I believe. I’m surprised Alex hasn’t called you, actually.’
She rolled her eyes. ‘Maybe you scared him off with your face.’
‘I don’t know what you mean,’ he responded coolly.
‘Really. You can be pretty intimidating when you want to be.’
‘I can assure you I wasn’t trying.’
‘Well, I haven’t heard from him.’
‘He’s obviously not that interested,’ Henry said consolingly.
‘Hey, watch the ego!’ She took another sip of beer.
‘If I wanted you, nothing could stop me.’
Maybe it hung out there longer than it should have. She glanced at his throat and the line from his shoulder to his collarbone because she didn’t want to look at his face.
‘Anyway, I hope he calls, because you don’t seem like the dating kind to me, and I like to socialise with people who like to speak to other people, have haircuts and jobs and stuff.’
‘Okay. So tell me more about what sort of person you are, Cate.’
She stared back at him. ‘No thanks.’
‘You – let me guess – have a posse of girlfriends called names like Pippy, Flick and Britt.’
‘Not true.’
‘You all go out in short but very pretty dresses, maybe straight from work —’
‘You’re terrible at this —’
‘— where you’re PR chicks – and the men gather around for the privilege of buying you drinks —’
‘Man, you’re single, aren’t you? Really super single – like Olympic-level single?’
‘— and hope they get to see you naked at some point, because you’re so beautiful, they can’t believe all it takes to talk to you is a couple of lousy drinks.’
‘Okay, so maybe part of that is kind of true.’
‘When really they’re not good enough for you – not really – because you’re too good for anyone.’
‘Ha! It’s uncanny just how shitty you are at this! Seriously!’
‘And maybe one or two of you get lucky, and maybe you score free drinks, or free drugs – anything to laugh about later between handbag purchases.’
She fell silent and watched him, running her finger absent-mindedly up and down her beer glass.
‘While you wait to land the big fish, who’s going to save you from your boring, dumbshit job which you hate, and make your life feel successful.’
‘Sweetheart, you forgot the best bit – where I’m such an arsehole that I kill my best friend. And the only reason I’m wandering about now is because I’m a nice girl from a nice family, and my parents put up a ten-thousand-dollar bond.’ She leaned over and clinked her glass to his. ‘Cheers. If you’re going to tell the story, don’t leave out the best bits.’
He refused to look sorry. She really didn’t expect him to; she was a grown-up, and she didn’t want to make excuses about Brigit. She owed her that much.
‘So. That’s it. Why you’re out here, looking after your aunt. Penance.’
‘Maybe. But really I had nowhere else to go.’
‘Does Ida know?’
‘Nope.’ Hello, beer. How’ve you been?
‘You want to tell me about it?’
‘Do you?’
He shook his head and downed his drink.
‘You haven’t said you’ve actually been charged yet,’ he said eventually. ‘Have you ever entertained the thought that your friend’s death may not be completely your fault?’
‘Nope.’
He sighed. ‘What about the dead girl’s parents?’
‘We haven’t spoken since the funeral. I didn’t really talk to them – it seemed cruel to beg for forgiveness when they had just lost everything.’
There was no pity in his face. She felt like she could say anything, admit anything.
‘You’re not dumb,’ he said.
‘Huh?’
‘You are not. Dumb. What did you do before you left Perth?’
‘Anything, really. I usually fell into work – temping at this office, promoting that bar opening, looking after that person’s kids, assisting museum curators or art directors – mostly fun stuff, but never anything lasting.’
‘Why not?’
‘It was easy. Fun.’ She looked out of the pub window onto the main street, where someone had parked their beat-up ute with the door open, and a couple of kelpies in the back barking in crazy unison. ‘Until it wasn’t.’
‘What was her name?’ he asked, and his deep hazel eyes regarded her, unafraid. As if he didn’t mind if she cried, as if he didn’t think she would, because she was going to be tougher than that. As if he had faith in her.
‘Brigit.’
They left the pub and drove home along the same road, past the same dry paddocks waiting for rain. She watched the bottom of his tattoo. As he drove it moved, so slightly, in and out of his T-shirt sleeve. What was it? Criminal? It didn’t look like a chess club logo. Some of his dark hair had come out of its tie, and he kept pushing it off his forehead like it bothered him.
When they pulled in to the farm they both unloaded the plants and the pipes, and Cate gave them a quick spray with the hose.
‘I’ll give you a hand tomorrow,’ Henry told her, and took her hand. She had been about to go inside but she stopped. He was watching her, carefully, as if he had all the time in the world. He moved closer, and she had to look up at him, her heart thumping at her for a moment.
‘It won’t change anything. But you should still tell Brigit you’re sorry.’ With his other hand, he slowly reached out and stroked her hair, ending the touch by cupping her face warmly, his face sad, as if there was stuff he could say but wouldn’t. Then he was gone, through the garden, out of the gate, and away to pat someone else’s dog in the falling-down kitchen of someone who had died long ago.
Dear Brigit, I’m sorry about what happened, and I wish you were still alive.
Dear Brigit, you won’t get this letter, because we were stupid, and made a huge dumb mistake, which is my fault.
Dear Brigit, you died right next to me and you had so much more potential than me, and I accidentally stole that from you.
Dear Brigit, if I had known, I would never, never have . . .
Dear Brigit, I’ve come back to my aunt’s farm, where I don’t know much anymore, but where people seem to want to like me, because they don’t know what I did.
Dear Brigit, you know the funny thing is that the world keeps on going without you, like you never really mattered – and we used to think the whole damn thing revolved around us, but it doesn’t, and no amount of social media will make it so.
Dear Brigit, you were so beautiful and I love you still.
Cate sat at the kitchen table late into the night. Mostly she stared at the paper or chewed her pen. It was dumb. And there was nothing she could say. She made coffee in her pot, striking a match and watching it burn down as it waited for the gas to ignite. She looked out of the window as she
waited for the hiss of coffee steam; really looked, into the black silence she was so used to pushing back every night. The little house was a tiny beacon of light in a universe of nothing. Of everything. She went back to the kitchen table and tried again. After midnight, she looked up. The curlew had started to whistle, down in the bush.
CHAPTER 15
Henry was over bright and early. Cate was exhausted. She heard him moving about in the yard, dragging a shovel over the dirt where he thought the pipe might go, pacing out its length. She rolled over in her sagging bed so that she was on her stomach, and stretched out awkwardly, bent back, with her face in her pillow. Now he was whistling. It was a tune she didn’t know, and from the sound of it, neither did he. She groaned. If she was going to stay on for a while, she was going to have to sort out the damn sleeping arrangements. She rolled out of bed, which involved a certain amount of momentum and a dismount grunt at the end, then straggled up the hallway to the front verandah.
‘Morning,’ she grumbled, pushing her hair back from her face.
‘Morning,’ he replied with a smile. ‘Nice undies.’
‘Huh?’ She looked down. ‘Crap! Crap! Crap!’
She whirled quickly around, gracelessly whacked her head on the doorway, and stumbled back inside, tripping over her feet. Henry grinned like an idiot, recording the whole event for replay later; he didn’t have a TV. She trotted to a pile of clothes on her floor and pulled some on. Let’s try that again, she thought, and headed for the kitchen instead. She watched him from the safety of her fully clothed body as she made a fresh pot of coffee. He was completely engaged in the garden, stepping across the trench he was digging, looking this way and that, stopping to pat his site manager every time he passed.
After a couple of minutes, she poured two mugs and went back outside.
‘Not a word,’ she warned, handing him his, ‘although you may smirk. Quietly.’
‘Already there,’ he assured her. They sat in the morning sun for a few moments, considering the worksite.
‘What happens first?’ she asked.
‘Irrigation, I think. We want to make sure we’ve got the established plants covered, and we’ve got more flexibility with the new stuff.’
‘Looks like you’ve made a good start,’ she offered.
‘Yeah, it should be an easy job.’ He sipped his coffee. ‘How’s Ida?’
‘Not great. She went in for the angiogram yesterday, and it looks like the blood vessels to her heart have shrunk. The cardiologist says she needs an operation, but she’s eighty-four, so any surgery is risky. I’m thinking I might go down to see her shortly.’
‘Will you be gone long?’
‘I’m not sure – probably not. I feel as if she’s got medical support there while she needs it, and I can make her place really great for her to come back to.’
Henry nodded in agreement, and they sat drinking coffee together for a while. The sun had risen high in the morning sky, and the day was warm.
Cate stood. ‘Here, give me your mug.’ She smiled and reached out to him. When her hand grazed his fingers, she was startled, and snatched the mug away. He wasn’t someone you accidentally touched.
He glanced at her sharply; maybe it had surprised him, too.
‘I’ll get my hat and we can get started,’ she said.
The garden had good bones; Ida had taken great pride in it once, and had spent many hours tending the young plants and chasing out the chooks and rabbits. Cate concentrated on shrubs and flowers. Many needed pulling out and adding to the to-be-burned pile, so she dragged them out, or dug them out as necessary, while Henry rolled out piping and added T-sections. Occasionally they chatted, and more often they listened to the ABC on the radio and kept to their own thoughts. Cate felt a begrudging satisfaction that Ida would be pleased when she came home.
‘I wonder if there’s a seat we could put in the garden for Aunty Ida,’ she said aloud. ‘The old cane chairs are on their last legs, too.’
He glanced about. ‘I can keep an eye out.’
‘By that do you mean, steal some stuff?’
He shook his head in disbelief. ‘Why on earth would you think that I pinch stuff?’
‘Beard. Tatt. Career choice. The shearing shed fridge in your squat.’
‘Damn – you must want me bad. That’s a great list.’
‘Frankly, I’ve dated worse.’
He shook his head as he headed back for more piping. ‘I can’t see how,’ he muttered.
It was probably a fragile self-esteem really, but she wasn’t about to say that. She’d been really into the attention once, but that seemed like a while ago now, and kind of less pathetic when your friends were doing exactly the same thing. Hoping someone, anyone, would notice them. The more guys, the better, because it was an unspoken competition, and they were in it to win, without ever naming the game.
Henry was joining black bits of pipe together on the other side of the garden, utterly contentedly absorbed in his task. She looked at her watch.
‘Anyway, I’ve gotta go inside and bake as I’ve never baked before.’
‘Have you ever baked before?’ he asked without looking up.
‘Never.’
‘Shouldn’t be too hard, then.’
She wandered back into the cool of the house and started prepping the kitchen. She’d at least seen MasterChef, and she’d picked up tips from loads of share houses, so she wasn’t a bad cook; it was just that baking was a specific skill set, and she’d never bothered with it. That’s what shops were for. She pulled a copy of The Golden Wattle Cookery Book from the shelf, ignored half the advice, and knocked out a dozen scones in well under an hour. Except they were a bit flat. Wrong flour, maybe. She threw them out and tried again. Burned her hand on the tray getting them out of the oven, accidentally turned off the oven, nearly blew her face off when she leaned inside to light it again, then swore loudly and refreshed her cup of coffee while she contemplated her future.
She needed to get this done. The damn cake stall was tomorrow. She thought about packet scones, then decided Kath at the co-op couldn’t keep her mouth shut. She stood up and launched her hands into the mixture, rubbing the butter into the flour, adding milk, then kneading like crazy.
‘What are you doing?’ Henry had come in to observe her progress, and his large figure was leaning in the doorway, looking aghast.
‘Making scones.’
Henry pulled her hands off the corpse of dough. ‘No you’re not. Step away from the dough.’
She pulled a face of frustration. She didn’t need this. ‘What?’
‘How long have you been kneading this stuff?’
‘Ten minutes or so.’
‘Don’t.’
‘Huh?’
‘You don’t knead scones. You treat them gently, lightly, softly.’
‘Yeah, yeah, Nigella – what makes you an expert?’
‘I have a mother in Victoria.’
‘You do?’
‘And she’s a good baker. Lots of sons. So I know you don’t pummel scones to death. And you cook them quickly in a hot oven.’
‘Really.’
‘Yes.’
She was fed up, and threw the dough-pancake into the bin. ‘Okay, you’re up. Help me make these damn things or it’s going to get embarrassing.’
‘Why?’
‘Because I’m going to cry, and I can tell you aren’t okay with crying women.’
He nodded. He washed his hands like a surgeon ready to operate, and pored over The Golden Wattle Cookery Book with her.
‘Here, rub the butter and the flour together,’ he said patiently.
She looked unimpressed. ‘Why not use the mixer?’
‘I have no idea. Just do as you’re told.’
She fixed him with a glare but got rubbing, and found, ultimately, that it wasn’t so bad. Henry guided her through the process with the understanding of a cook who had done a bit of baking in his life. She wondered about the woman who had taught
him to cook. Did she know where he was now? Was she looking for him? She hated to think of Henry’s Victorian mother pining for her boy and not knowing his fate. Henry leaned over and bumped her as he reached for the baking tray.
‘Cate? Time to cut the scones out and get them in the oven.’ He checked the temperature was high.
She picked up the scone cutter and pushed it into the soft dough, then twisted it and brought it back out.
Henry tut-tutted and placed his hand over hers for the next one, his large arm running casually down hers, looking over her shoulder to check her form. ‘Don’t twist it.’
‘Why not?’
‘Not sure. Stops it rising as much?’
He gave off a lot of heat. ‘Okay.’
He kept his hand on hers for a few more scones. Maybe he thought the technique took practice. Finally, the scones were in, and rising, forming perfect golden crusts.
Cate leaned back to wait them out for a few minutes. ‘You coming to the cake stall?’ she asked.
‘I don’t really do cake stalls.’
‘Afraid of people? Or carbs?’
‘Either way – here –’ he reached into his pocket – ‘just sell me the scones and we’ll call it even.’
‘I’m not selling you my scones! I’d have to turn up empty-handed. No! My blood is in these scones – maybe literally. Give me five bucks and I’ll get you a cake.’
‘Take twenty and get me a couple of good ones.’
‘Do you even eat cake? You don’t look like you eat cake.’
‘Does it go with beer?’
‘Doubt it.’
‘Then I’ll save it for visitors.’
‘Probably just as well you’re not coming – you’d scare the children. Or make them think it was Christmas.’ She glanced into the oven.
‘The beard. It annoys the shit out of you, doesn’t it?’
‘No, I just don’t like it.’
‘What makes you think I care if you like it?’ he asked.
‘I don’t think you care if I like it,’ she huffed back.
She was looking at him, irritated, and he was doing the same, his muscled body leaning against the kitchen bench with her, in front of the oven. She didn’t even quite know why she was irritated. She thought maybe it was the tone of his voice. The chooks were happily discussing the taste of dirt outside. At least they were getting along, she thought. She glanced sideways at him, and was surprised to see him smiling, quietly, under all the hair.
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