The Cowgirl

by Anthea Hodgson

  Teddy and Will worked at the dig until late that afternoon. The sun was low in the sky when Teddy’s thoughts returned to the dress parade. She had just fitted into Deirdre’s dress and she still didn’t like to think about how she would cope when her turn came to walk down the aisle between the gathered tables. She sat on the edge of the hole and knocked dirt off more bottles from an area that must have been the kitchen. She made herself imagine the walk at the Hall, trying to slow her breath as she thought about all of those eyes upon her, and the sound of the music playing and what the girls would be thinking. Oh, how nice to see Teddy making an effort. Good to see Teddy out of the house. She knocked some dirt out of a jar. Silly. No one was going to think anything; they all had lives to attend to, no one cared whether she was there or not.

  She glanced up self-consciously and watched Will for a long moment. He had worked up a sweat, his hair was falling into his eyes and his shirt was hanging open. She picked delicately at some more dirt while she thought about him. He looked up and caught her staring, and he stared back. If it was a challenge, he won.

  Teddy stood, brushed the dirt from her hands and went home.

  Barnaby the Carnaby was haunting her. As she was crossing the yard he came back again. He was sitting in the old fig tree, squawking at her and raising his crest as if to remind her who he was. Can you see me? Can you see me?

  ‘I see you,’ she grumbled. ‘Go away.’ Barnaby screeched, and flapped his wings in the branches of the pepper tree. ‘Go away.’ Barnaby flapped closer and landed in a eucalyptus next to the workshop. He turned his head at her, left then right, as if he wasn’t sure if he recognised her any more. She picked up a stick and hit the tree, making the branches sway. ‘Go away!’ she yelled. ‘Go find your friends!’ Barnaby ignored her. He leapt from the tree and began circling overhead, centring himself above her. ‘Leave!’ she screamed.

  ‘Just bloody get out of here and go away!’ She picked up a rock and threw it at him. It sailed past him and he shrieked and squawked at her.

  Now Teddy picked up a handful of stones and flung them in the air. One may have hit him, she realised with a pang, because he shrieked again and scrambled to the top of the shearing shed, where he sat with his comb fanning and folding. His claws made a scratching noise on the tin as he hopped from foot to foot.

  ‘Just go away, you dumb bird,’ she grumbled. ‘No one wants you here. You don’t belong here.’

  The sun was too bright to watch him for long, and frankly the attention was probably what he wanted, so she went inside and left him to it, still irritated by the sound of him walking up and down on the tin roof.

  Later that day Will was at her door again, leaning against the frame with his arms folded across his chest like she had asked him over.

  ‘Wanna date?’ he asked.

  ‘Pardon?’

  ‘Okay, so not a date. Audrey’s coming over to have a viewing of the dig and she’s bringing some steaks. I can’t pick her up, because –’ he made pow pow shooting motions with his fingers – ‘but I said you’d join us for dinner.’

  ‘Sure,’ Teddy said. She tossed her pen down and left the paperwork to do itself. It wasn’t like it was going to catch fire if she left it for a few hours. They were walking back to the campfire just as Audrey’s little car pulled up the driveway.

  Audrey arrived carrying food. ‘Here, put these somewhere safe from Dog, will you, Teddy, and Will, tell me what you’ve been up to,’ she said. Will put his arm around her and guided her through the site while she made small interested noises and asked questions about the things he was finding. When she was satisfied with her tour, she and Deirdre set to making dinner by the fire.

  ‘You two sit,’ Deirdre declared. ‘We’ve been cooking on fires for longer than you’ve been alive, haven’t we, Audrey?’

  ‘Oh, yes! We can knock up a meal on a fire very happily, don’t you worry about that.’

  Audrey began chopping potatoes and mixing them with lemon, salt and rosemary from Deirdre’s bush where it hung heavily over the garden fence. Deirdre was dicing tomatoes and fresh basil, and toasting thick bread on a wire rack she had set up next to the coals. They chatted as they worked, while Teddy and Will watched in on their comfortable routine and the fire as it lowered its flames.

  ‘Do you remember that pianist we sometimes had at the dances on gala occasions, Deirdre?’ Audrey asked as she adjusted the campfire pan in the coals.

  ‘Oh, yes, of course. What was her name now? She was a Yugoslavian woman, wasn’t she? Escaping Europe after the war.’

  ‘Yes, I believe so, I think she lived somewhere around Narrogin. Very glamorous she was but very severe, all in black, with a huge feathered plume in her hair and long white gloves.’ She turned to Teddy and Will. ‘We’d never seen anything like her!’

  ‘No, never,’ Deirdre agreed. ‘You remember how difficult she was if there wasn’t any dancing?’ She flipped a steak and the smell of cooking meat finally woke Dog, who sat to attention.

  ‘Oh, heaven forbid!’

  ‘What?’ Teddy asked, taking a sip of beer. ‘What would she do?’

  ‘Well, firstly, she’d enter the hall with great dignity, and we’d all hush and watch her in total and utter awe. Then she’d take to the stage and, with a sort of sniff, she’d seat herself at the piano and begin playing a gypsy tap,’ said Audrey.

  ‘Marvellous player,’ added Deirdre.

  ‘Oh, yes, marvellous. Now, if she looked out and no one was dancing, she would stop playing and look about at the crowd, all of us chattering away, having a lovely time, and then she’d get up, walk to the front of the stage and almost glare at us all, until we’d dragged a few couples onto the floor to dance! It was a hoot! She never spoke, really, but we knew. Hop to it, or Mrs Lakovic – that was her name – will be furious!’

  ‘And were you there the night she walked out?’ Deirdre said. ‘I was. We were all left standing there in the hall with our mouths hanging open – our pianist had gone.’

  ‘I had to send Ida down to the lake to fetch her back in!’

  ‘Nobody sat down for the rest of the night, I can tell you that much!’ Deirdre smiled.

  They served the hot steaks, running with juice, the crunchy potatoes and the fresh tomato and basil on smokey toast. It was heaven, and as they ate the old ladies kept recalling the good times they’d had at Windstorm Hall. All the familiar names were there: Mr Honeyman from the co-op, Mr Kingston, the chairman of the Road Board, Mrs Beswick, Mrs Jarvis, Mrs Coupland who played the piano in church. They were like old friends to Teddy, she knew their stories as well as she knew her own. It was as if they were still there, watching over Windstorm even now, from the cemetery.

  Will finished eating and was fiddling with his mandolin. ‘What’s a tune I’d know from back then?’ he asked.

  ‘How about “Sweet Violets”?’

  ‘Nup.’

  ‘“Don’t Fence Me In”?’

  He grinned and gave an experimental strum, felt the chords fall into his hands and the little instrument picked up the notes and carried them across the fire, twinkling.

  ‘That’s it!’ Audrey declared, standing up. ‘Come on Deirdre, let’s show these young ones how to dance!’ Audrey was holding her hand out to Deirdre, who looked grumpy for a moment, then took the offered hand and moved to her feet. ‘Now. How did it go? You lead, Deirdre – you’ll remember the steps.’

  The old ladies played about with the steps to the gypsy tap, comfortably grumbling (Deirdre) and giggling (Audrey) as they made mistakes, or couldn’t perform the steps as they once had. They were lit by the firelight. Will sat leaning up against the 44-gallon drum, his legs stretched out in front of him, watching them as he strummed almost absent-mindedly. He looked across and caught Teddy watching him for the second time that day.

  ‘You going to dance?’ he asked. She shook her head. He stopped playing and stood up, dragging her to her feet. ‘Come on, girls – I want to dance with Teddy and I think I
can give it a go if you ladies can sing it for us.’

  ‘I can do better than that,’ Audrey declared. ‘I can bash it out on Deirdre’s piano and Deirdre can teach you the steps!’ She headed off to Deirdre’s house and flung open the living room window to the cold night air. Deirdre would be grumbling about it later. Will nodded at Teddy.

  ‘Come on, Twinkle Toes. It’s time. We’ve both wondered, and now we’ll know.’

  ‘I’m not going to ask what you mean.’

  His tongue may have flicked into his cheek briefly and he grinned warmly. ‘Because you know what I mean.’

  Deirdre was looking impatient, shifting from one old leg to the other as if they were already late for their lesson. Will placed his beer carefully on the drum then took Teddy by the hand to where Deirdre was glaring at him. Just in case.

  ‘All right,’ she snapped. ‘Will, you hold Teddy about . . . there.’ She placed her hands between them. ‘Now, step back.’ Will was smiling down at her, having a blast. Teddy was awkward at first, but then the sound of an enthusiastically hammered piano came floating across the night air accompanied by the high, reed-thin voice of Audrey.

  ‘Give me land, lots of land under starry skies above. Don’t fence me in . . .’ Teddy smiled despite herself, and Will moved her a little closer as she relaxed.

  ‘Left, Teddy, not right!’ Deirdre said, and moved a chair out of the way. ‘And look at you, clumping about in your boots! In my day we danced properly: in shoes. And nice dresses . . .’ Deirdre was still talking but Teddy wasn’t listening any more, because Will was teaching her to dance.

  His long body moved easily to the music drifting out of the window. His deep blue eyes held her and as his arms seemed to guide her direction, his hips guided her feet, and by something unspoken she was moving in almost perfect time with him. His hand was too low on her back, and maybe Deirdre was huffing about it, but if she was Teddy didn’t notice. He wouldn’t stop smiling at her and she found herself shifting against his chest, her hand reaching up to rest on his large shoulder, which moved under her fingertips as they danced. He held her firmly, not loosely or apologetically. He held her as if he didn’t want to let her go and part of her didn’t want to let him, either.

  And then he wasn’t smiling at all, and they somehow seemed closer than ever. The golden light from the fire was flashing across his face as they turned but in the shadow his eyes were dark and full of promise, and the moon was slipping down his skin, touching it with silver light. Her body danced and her mind followed him into the night. I want to ride to the ridge where the west commences . . . His hands were taking small liberties where they could, and his thighs brushed against her own. Deirdre had been adding a few not like thats and not so closes, but she’d seen the lie of the land and had given up, heading back to her chair to poke at the fire and watch on.

  And gaze at the moon until I lose my senses . . . Teddy was breathing a little faster in the cold night air and she could see from the rise and fall of his chest that Will was, too. She stared at him, forgetting something she thought she never could, and remembering something she never really knew. Will smiled softly and moved his warm cheek to hers. ‘Well, that answers that question, then,’ he whispered.

  Send me off forever, but I ask you please, Don’t fence me in . . .

  ‘That’s enough dancing!’ Deirdre declared, placing the billy in the coals. ‘Come back, Audrey. Time for tea!’ She glared at them both. ‘Not bad,’ she snapped. ‘I’ve seen worse. SHUT THAT WINDOW, AUDREY!’

  There was an apologetic response from Audrey and the sound of a window slamming forthwith. Will took Teddy’s hand and escorted her back to her spot next to the fire as Audrey made her way back.

  ‘I must say, our genes must be strong, Deirdre. Weren’t they lovely?’

  ‘Harrumph. Don’t know about lovely, Audrey, but nobody died.’

  ‘Do you know what story I was thinking about in your lounge room?’

  Deirdre grunted noncommitally. She either couldn’t imagine or she didn’t want to, in case she disapproved.

  ‘Beowulf and the dragon!’

  Will laughed, and distributed the scones.

  Deirdre, unsurprisingly, glared a little more fiercely than usual, up around her ‘talking in church’–level glare. ‘Never heard of him,’ she grumbled, throwing tea leaves in the pot and giving it a stir.

  ‘Oh, you will have, you’ve just forgotten. I only think of it because of your vase, of course. A golden treasure, dear – a golden goblet.’ And not the dragon part, naturally. ‘Now it’s years since I heard the tale, of course. I believe it comes originally from Scandinavia, maybe Denmark? But it was first written down in Anglo-Saxon Britain over a thousand years ago. Isn’t that remarkable?’ They sat down with their hot tea and scones and watched the fire. Dog rolled over to toast his left side. ‘Now, I believe it involves a slave escaping his master and running and hiding in a cave. It’s very dark in there, and he keeps moving further in. Further back into the gloom and darkness.’

  ‘Foolish.’ Deirdre disapproved of him already.

  ‘Yes, dear, and so he gets to the back of the cave for a little rest, and he realises, firstly, that he is in a room filled with gold and treasure. Can you imagine? A mountain of gold coins, and daggers, cups, goblets, neckpieces, armbands. He can’t believe his eyes. But he can also hear something, and he realises it is the sound of something very, very large, breathing. Snoring. He creeps over to see a sleeping dragon.’ Deirdre shifted uncomfortably in her fold-out chair. ‘So he thinks, Well, I’ve got to get out of here, but he also thinks, Just one little thing won’t matter. I’ll just take one little thing and this lovely old dragon will slumber on, none the wiser, and I’ll be set for life! Gold!’

  Will winked at Teddy. It was warmer than the fire.

  ‘So he reaches out and slowly and carefully takes a goblet. It clatters a little, the gold shifts a little, and the dragon starts to stir . . . He’s off! The slave takes off and runs through the dark cave, his terrified feet pounding past the bones of past visitors, and out into the light. But of course the dragon wakes. He does a quick check of his gold. Thief! He roars into life in an explosion of fire and fury and he screams through the cave and out into the light to hunt the thief. In his rage, the dragon attacks the nearby villages, burning them to the ground.’ Audrey took a big sip of tea, while they waited. ‘Of course, eventually the fight comes to Beowulf’s village. Beowulf is a mighty warrior, a giant of a man. He’s won battles and been a hero for years – and I mean years, he’s probably around eighty at this stage.’ She glanced at Deirdre. ‘We’ve still got a bit of life left in us, eh, Deirdre?’ she smiled. ‘Anyway, Beowulf decides that this is his final battle. He gets himself a nice new sword, finds the dragon’s lair and battles to the death.’

  ‘Who wins?’ asked Will, glancing at Deirdre who was glaring back at him.

  ‘Well, it’s a terrible battle, but ultimately they both die, as it happens. One of Beowulf’s men helps him pierce the dragon’s belly, but he’s already mortally wounded. So he says, Bring out some of the dragon’s gold so I can see it while I die, and he leaves the kingdom and wealth to his warrior, Wiglaf.’

  ‘Poor dragon,’ said Teddy.

  ‘Poor dragon was cooking and eating people,’ Will interjected.

  ‘He’s a dragon!’ Teddy protested.

  ‘My point exactly.’ He nudged her with his thigh and she smiled.

  ‘Silly story,’ Deirdre sniffed.

  Teddy noticed that Audrey was eyeing Will a little nervously. She kept pausing and watching him, although Will, for his part, remained oblivious, relaxed with a hand on his drink and the other not far from his mandolin. Eventually she spoke.

  ‘Now Will, I did want to speak to you about your mother.’

  ‘Audrey . . .’

  ‘Let me speak, dear.’

  ‘Yes, Audrey.’

  ‘Pam is a woman who has had some problems in her life.’ She began. ‘I know she
may not have been a perfect mother —’

  ‘Yes —’

  ‘But she is desperate to make up for lost time, dear.’ Audrey looked at Will hopefully. ‘You could do that, couldn’t you, Will? Just get in touch now and then? Find out how she’s going, that kind of thing?’

  Will rolled his eyes. ‘Audrey, I don’t want to hurt her, honestly. I just don’t think there’s much to say.’

  ‘So don’t say it. Just tell her about what you get up to, day to day. She’ll be fascinated.’

  He sighed and his gaze flicked to Teddy as if she might advise him. He was barking up the wrong tree. She shrugged.

  ‘It won’t mean anything,’ he said at length.

  ‘To you,’ Audrey told him. ‘It will mean the world to her.’

  ‘I didn’t mean the world to her fifteen years ago,’ he said.

  ‘No, but you mean the world to me.’

  Teddy breathed in. Oh, that was good. When it came to gentle nudges, Audrey was a master.

  ‘Geez. Okay, I’ll think about it.’

  Audrey beamed and Teddy felt her spine sag slightly in relief. Will put his arm around Audrey’s shoulders. She stopped smiling

  though, and Teddy thought it strange, until Audrey looked up at his gentle face and said, ‘She’s dying, you know.’

  ‘Mum?’ he asked quietly.

  Audrey nodded, turning to him with tears in her eyes. ‘She didn’t want you to know. It’s breast cancer, but it’ll take her.’ Audrey took his hand and held it, but after a while he pulled away.

  Teddy hovered uncertainly. ‘Oh, Will, I’m sorry,’ she whispered. He didn’t look at her, though he inclined his head to show he’d heard.

  Teddy didn’t know what to do. She remembered how she had felt when she’d heard the news about her father, and she knew that there was nothing she could say, that he couldn’t really hear her anyway. She watched Will, standing quietly as the knowledge that he was to lose his mother settled about him.

  ‘She didn’t want me to tell you,’ Audrey said quietly, ‘because she didn’t want to upset you – not when things between you have been so difficult.’