by Lily Malone
Liv pushed her plate across the table hard enough to make Owen thrust out his hand to stop it bull-dozing his juice. Her half-eaten sandwich bumped and skidded off the plate and she was on her feet, hands balled into fists.
From the hall, the television coverage cut to the upbeat jingle of a burger chain advert.
“I hate the word faggots,” she said.
“Mark doesn’t mean anything by it.”
Her chin came up. “The minority get heard when the majority stay silent, Owen. It happens all over the world. It happens every second of every day.”
She exited the kitchen.
Owen heard Mark greet her: “I hope you’re not a Crows’ fan, Olivia. They’re playing like shit.”
Whatever she answered he didn’t hear because the ad-break ended, the crowd roared, and the next thing he heard was the commentator welcoming viewers back to the game.
Owen lifted the Martin up to the table so it couldn’t fall then crossed to the sink to dump the plates. By the time he reached the lounge, Olivia had gone and the screen door quivered itself still.
“You can be such a dickhead sometimes,” he said, staring at his cousin.
Mark thumbed the volume lower on the remote, sat back on the couch and looked up. “She called me insensitive.”
“What did she say, exactly?”
He gestured with the remote. “She said calling a homosexual a Faggot, is like calling a black man a Nigger. She appreciates she’s a guest in my mother’s house, but she finds the use of that word insensitive. That was it.”
“What did you say?”
“I didn’t have time to say anything, man. She took off.” Mark’s eyes slid to the widescreen.
Owen felt the muscles of his right arm clench. Part of him wanted to pick his cousin up by the scruff of the neck and shake the shit out of him.
Mark’s thumb inched the volume higher. “Fucking Collingwood. They’re killing us.”
The commentator’s voice rose. “…another goal and that’s trouble for the Crows.”
“Fuck Crows. That’s such shit,” Mark yelled at the television.
Owen had to get out. The red haze of anger—the way it washed at the back of his neck like a tide—warned him to walk away. Last time he’d felt that pressure to lash out at someone it had ended with the Parker kid clutching his elbow, screaming on the floorboards of a rented farm house.
He pushed off the doorframe, breathing hard, welcoming the fresh air of the veranda as he pulled on his boots.
****
“Mark didn’t mean anything by it.”
“That’s the second time you’ve said that, Owen,” Liv said, letting the Felcotronic slice through another spur. “Tell your cousin to engage his brain before he opens his mouth.”
“Engage is too big a word for him,” Owen said.
She didn’t smile.
He persisted. “You could always go cut his thumb off. It’s not as if he can run. Kick his crutches out from under him or something.”
“Please stop trying to jolly me out of it. It won’t work.”
“I’m not sure why it’s such a big deal,” he said. “So Mark is an idiot. Don’t let him get to you.”
Liv sighed.
Owen’s eyes probed. “It’s only a word, Liv.”
Our son’s a faggot, Alison. You know that.
She shivered, caught in the memory of her father’s voice. “I know.”
“Do you want to talk about it? I’m here you know. As a friend…”
Adjusting her grip on the pruners, she waved his offer away.
Perhaps he sensed she needed the space because he left her alone after that. “If you change your mind, I’ll be in row twenty-six. I’m the one wearing the green vest.”
****
Liv straightened to stretch the small of her back. Out of the corner of her eye she could see Owen working in the row next to hers, at about four pm to her twelve o’clock. He’d got faster as the day wore on and while technology gave her the advantage with the electronic pruners, he had the brute strength and stamina.
“I don’t like the look of that,” Owen called, pointing skyward. “I don’t mind rain, but it’s cold enough to hail. There’s no point us getting soaked now. I was about ready to call it a day.”
Liv swivelled, lifting her sunglasses to better gauge the light. The afternoon had closed in while they’d been pruning and the sky was bruised and angry. An icy raindrop stung her cheek.
Liv turned off the Felcotronic and tried to shield it with her body.
“Where did you leave that raincoat?” Owen asked, snatching the loppers out of his belt, preparing to run.
“Up there.” She pointed back up the hill to her right. Another raindrop splashed her forehead and when she glanced back over her shoulder to the south, distant rain fell in white sheets.
“I think we better split, Liv. Run.” Owen turned.
She clutched the pruner tight to her chest and lurched forward. By the time she reached the top of the vine row her lungs burned and the Felco felt more like a brick. Owen waited at the top—in the same row as her now—face screwed up against the rain.
“Let me take that.” He reached for the pruner.
“I got it...keep running,” she gasped, fighting the beginnings of a stitch in her side. “I stop now… won’t get started...”
Her navy raincoat flapped on an end post and as they neared it she heard the spatter of rain on plastic. Owen yanked the coat from the post. He threw it over her head and shoulders like a cape, but she couldn’t hold the Felco and keep the coat closed around her throat, so she bunched the raincoat over the equipment instead, and ran. Over grass, over gravel, heart bursting.
Please, God. Aren’t we there yet? How could the cottage still be so far away? Her beanie slipped down her forehead and she had no hand free to push it up. She could hardly see and there was a rock band pounding drums in her chest.
“In there.” Owen took her by the arm, veered her towards the shed and she shuffled that way.
“Keep going,” he urged, half-dragging her now as water pooled and they splashed through puddles.
“Dying here,” she sputtered.
The clatter on the iron roof became a roar—loud even above the rush of blood in her ears. Then it changed into a needlepoint ping.
“Hell. That’s hail. Come on,” Owen said and with one final effort, they burst into the calm of the shed.
Liv could hardly stand. All the layers of clothes weighed her down and she was hot beneath them, stifling hot, despite the frigid air.
It was Owen who peeled the carry-pack from her back and prized the pruner from the clutch of her fingers. He dumped the Felcotronic on a shelf, dumped the loppers, then tucked the raincoat around her shoulders.
Liv finally managed to turn around. She was hot beyond belief and yet when she touched her face, her cheeks were freezing. Across the driveway, hail stones popped off the ground like bullet snow.
She hugged her arms across her chest. Maybe if she held tight enough, she could stop the bone-wrenching shakes.
“Jesus, Liv, you’re freezing. I should get you inside in front of the fire.” Owen had to shout to make himself heard.
“I’m f-f-fine.” In front of a fire was the last place she wanted to be, yet, here she was, all rugged up against the cold—Owen without a scrap of sensible clothing—and hers was the body shivering.
He took two steps towards her, laid his hands on her shoulders, and gently hauled her back into his chest.
There was a part of her that wanted to struggle, or perhaps, thought she should struggle, because Owen already had a girl. Those beautiful arms weren’t Liv’s to enjoy. Yet all she wanted was to lay her head back into the strength of his chest and stay there forever. It wasn’t right.
Not right, yet so perfect.
Owen’s heartbeat hammered her shoulder blade. Gradually, her shakes stopped and beneath the deafening crash of hail, her other senses found space to wake.
Springy dark hair covered Owen’s forearms and she laid her hands over his wrists. That same electricity she’d felt that morning zapped her palm but this time she didn’t snatch her hand away. Closing her eyes, she traced the line of tendons beneath his skin and in the darkness it was as if she was blind and he was braille.
She smelled fuel, chicken pellets and wheat. The mix was good. Owen smelled better. His scent was rain-washed leaves, sweet earth and honest sweat.
Liv burrowed into the curve of his jaw. The movement dislodged the beanie and it fell to the concrete floor at her feet. Her hair fanned loose about her face.
Owen rubbed his cheek at her temple—his skin rain-slick—and she felt rather than heard him suck a ragged breath as they touched.
Abruptly, the hail lessened.
Liv opened her eyes to the shed—to shelves and bags of stockfeed, tools and farm machinery. She saw the Ducati, silent and gleaming. Also not hers. Not yet.
“Liv–” Owen began huskily.
“Owen, we can’t…
“Owen?” A voice shouted across the yard.
His body stiffened.
Hers did too.
“Owen!”
“In here, Mark,” Owen shouted.
“Phone call, mate. It’s your girlfriend.”
“Who?” Owen yelled, sounding confused.
“It’s Vanessa.”
Vanessa. The name twisted sluggishly in Liv’s mind.
“Dickhead,” Owen muttered under his breath. “I have to take this call. Come inside with me. Get warm. I’ll make you coffee and then you can tell me what it is you think we can’t do.”
Liv ducked to pick up her hat and managed what she hoped was a nod. “Let me put this stuff in the car.”
“Okay.” Owen turned and ran through the puddles. He leapt up the steps, kicked off his boots and the screen door slammed behind him.
So Owen’s mystery girl had a name.
Vanessa.
What would this Vanessa think if she knew her boyfriend was about to kiss another girl?
Liv didn’t want to know.
She stepped to the shelf, picked up the tools and clutched them to her chest, ignoring the damp patch that spread there—a cold stain of pain.
Dumping the equipment in the boot, she climbed into the Hyundai and put it in reverse. Already the hail stones on the gravel were melting but there was enough ice under the tyres to make driving treacherous. Navigating the entrance road took all her skill, but even then, she kept stealing glances in her rearview mirror. All she saw was smoke being hurled from the chimney by the wind and two Border Collie dogs watching her car’s retreat.
Chapter 6
By nine o’clock that night, Liv was seriously considering cracking the new bottle of her mother’s cooking sherry and getting drunk in the company of Graham Norton and an all-girl dance troupe that looked like lip-syncing Oscars’ statuettes.
Ping. Pong.
Liv craned her neck to check the digital clock on the microwave. The last time someone knocked on the door this late it was a driver wanting to know if they owned the cat he’d just squashed.
Adjusting the volume on Graham Norton, she kicked the granny rug from her knees. The porch light shone gold through the front door’s frosted glass and through it, she could make out a dark silhouette.
She clicked the lock, opened the door a crack, and felt her heart bounce.
Owen.
Before the melting sensation in the pit of her stomach made her sigh out his name, she remembered the resolve she’d made driving home from the vineyard. Keep your distance.
Liv blocked the gap in the door with her body. Icy air seeped through the crack and helped calm the hot flare in her cheeks. “What is it, Owen? It’s late.”
An enormous bunch of flowers thrust through the door and she had to take a step back or cop a camellia in the nose. Owen’s shoulders jostled in behind the bouquet. “I want you to come for a ride with me. You ran off so fast this afternoon I didn’t get the chance to ask. I’ve wanted to ask you all day.”
The Pantah was at the kerb, gleaming under a streetlight. It was quiet now, static, but Liv knew the power that engine concealed.
The Ducati was like Owen—it could be dangerous in the wrong hands.
And mine are the wrong hands. Silently, she amended: the wrong hands for Owen, not for the bike.
“Come on,” he said, using his most disarming grin. He glanced around her shoulder to where the lights from the television flickered against the hallway wall. “What else are you doing tonight? Knitting?”
“I don’t feel like going on a motorbike ride,” she lied.
“What are you afraid of?” Owen said, switching his gaze back to her face, eyes suddenly serious. “I thought we were getting on great this afternoon and then you ran away.”
“You were busy.” It sounded feeble, even to her. Busy with Vanessa.
“You’re safe with me, Liv. We won’t crash.”
“I’m not afraid.” Not of crashing.
In that split second she calculated the odds of telling Owen to leave—get him on the Duke without causing a scene that would make the neighbours’ eyes pop. The look on his face told her those odds weren’t good.
“Come inside before you wake the whole damn street,” she said with an exasperated sigh, opening the door wider. “How the heck did you find me anyway?”
“Aunt Margaret rang old Mrs Gepp. That woman knows everyone who ever lived on Church Street, all their kids, grandkids. I think she knows the name of every cat and dog too.”
Owen bent to remove his boots then straightened and stepped across the threshold. Liv shut the door and followed his shoulders down the hall. He was kitted out for the road, dressed all in black, and he looked every bit as thrilling as the bad-boy biker boyfriend every girl’s parents’ dreaded. And here she was, caught in her comfort clothes: a grey tracksuit grown baggy in the bottom. Explorer socks.
“Where can I put these?” He waved the flowers. Pink and white petals sprinkled the floor.
“It’s fine for me to mess up this house. Not you,” she grumbled, scooting past him to the cabinet her mother kept for glassware.
She saw him inspect the bird paintings, the ornate polished cabinets, the stiff coffin of a couch. His eyes absorbed the colour schemes of alabaster and ivory, lace-edged cushions, everything layered white on white.
He put the flowers on the bench, leaned his hips on the bevelled edge and folded his arms across his chest. “You really live here?”
“It’s my parent’s house.”
“Yeah. But you live here? I don’t get that. How old are you?”
“You can talk. You’re squatting at your aunt’s. What’s the difference?” She fumbled around in the crystal cabinet, concentrating on not smashing her mother’s neat rows to smithereens.
“I’m staying with Aunt Margaret because Mark is on the invalid list and she needs a hand. It’s not the same. You could move out on your own. Cut the apron strings.”
“You think I want to live with my parents?” Liv fumed. Her hand closed about a heavy rectangular vase and she came up from her crouch thinking how ready she was to drop it on Owen’s toe. “You don’t know anything about me.”
“That’s because you won’t tell me anything about yourself.”
“I can’t see why you’d care? It’s not as if you’re staying around. Anyway, you have—”
“I have what?” The muscle flicked in his jaw.
You have Vanessa. “Nothing.” She stared at the sparkling crystal in her hand.
His fingers tapped a beat on the old wax bench. “If you’re talking about Antarctica, I told you I hadn’t decided whether I’d go yet.”
“Yes—because of your Pop and because of a girl—I get it.” She waved the vase impatiently. “Look, Owen, no offence, but what I do, who I do it with, where I live? None of it is any of your bloody business.”
“The hell it’s not.” Owen bounced from the k
itchen bench. “You’re the damn girl, Olivia.”
His words exploded into the space between them like a volcano unleashed. The intensity left her breathless. It surprised him too, because his face softened and he stepped back.
For long seconds they just stared at each other, until Liv took a careful breath, as if testing the air. “I’m the girl?”
“I’m sorry, that didn’t come out right,” Owen lifted his hand, palm down. “I didn’t mean to scare you.”
Liv stepped around his legs, stepped around the kitchen bench, buying time so she could process what she’d heard. He reached for her arm, thought better of it, and dropped his hand to his thigh.
Pushing the pile of plates out of her way, she shoved the vase under the cold tap. Cutlery and glass grated in the stainless steel sink.
Liv picked up a camellia stalk, slid it into the vase, picked up another and spun the flower in her fingers. “Owen, if I’m… the girl. Why did you make me think you had a girlfriend? Who is Vanessa?”
“Vanessa?”
“A woman rang you today? This afternoon... when we…well, I think you were about to kiss me…in the shed. Mark called her your girlfriend.”
“Vanessa? Vanessa Bell runs the Hahndorf Respite Care service. Granddad had a turn late today. I’ve just been in to see him.” Then he shook his head. “Bloody Mark. Don’t believe a word he says. He was just stirring me. He knows I like you.”
That admission made blood bolt to her cheeks. “Oh.”
“Yes. Oh,” Owen said pointedly. “You’re the one who assumed I had a girlfriend remember? The one who wouldn’t like getting helmet hair?”
Now she was the one who needed a helmet, something to hide the crimson flush she was certain crept to the crown of her head. “You could have set me straight, like you did when I thought Mark’s ute was yours.”
“If I’d known that was all that was holding you back. I’d have come clean in record time.” His eyes creased into one of his killer smiles.
Liv got caught by the light in his eyes which meant her second reaction—the one she probably should have thought of first—was a little belated. “I hope your Pop’s okay?”