by Karly Lane
She wasn’t sure exactly when her initial instinct to offer comfort began to turn into something else, but one minute she was feeling an overwhelming urge to protect and comfort one of her best friends, and the next … she could feel where they connected, all the way from chest to waist, the warmth of his larger body dwarfing hers.
It felt so … right.
Like a bucket of cold water being thrown over her, common sense came flooding back. She was supposed to be comforting a friend in need, not turning it into some, well, she wouldn’t allow her mind to find an appropriate word for whatever had just happened, that would only make it real. It was better to forget about it and concentrate on what was important. Which was Ollie.
Hadley eased out of his arms and ran her hands down the front of her T-shirt, wishing she didn’t miss the warmth of him against her.
‘Hads?’ he said, making her look up. ‘Thanks. For being here.’ He shrugged. ‘For bringing me up here.’
She managed a smile and felt it wobble slightly when he gave a small one in return.
The drive back into town was as quiet as on the way out, only this time there was more of a lightness—a sense of relief, maybe. On the way out there’d been pent-up grief and she suspected Ollie had still been in shock. Now, having been able to release some of his torment, he seemed almost back to his old self, only he wasn’t and probably never would be after today. Something had changed in all of them.
Ollie pulled his ute up alongside her car and she glanced over at him. ‘Are you coming back in?’
‘Nah, I think I’m just gonna head home.’
‘Are you sure?’
‘Yeah. I’m good. I just don’t feel like going back into the pub and listening to the same old shit. No one has any answers and, until they do, I really can’t handle sitting there listening to it anymore today.’
She understood what he meant, she wasn’t particularly looking forward to it either, but she wanted to at least make an appearance. ‘If you want, I can come home with you?’ ‘That’s okay. I’m just going to finish some work. But thanks again for, you know, earlier.’
‘You’re welcome. Call me if you need anything,’ she said, opening her door and sliding out.
She watched him drive away and tried to ignore the tiny flutter of abandonment that followed. Stop it, she told herself irritably. She put it down to concern for a friend but a little niggle of doubt played on the edge of her mind. What else could it be? Nothing she felt like overanalysing right now, that’s for sure.
Her phone let out a burst of music and she looked down to see Linc’s name on the screen.
‘Hey, Hads. I just heard the news about Luke Patterson.’
‘Yeah. It’s been a bit of a shock.’
‘Not wrong. How’s everyone doin’?’
‘Mum’s all over it—she’s with the Pattersons now. Griff’s pretty cut up and poor Ollie—he’s taking it really hard.’
‘I can imagine. They’ve all been playin’ footy and cricket together since they were kids.’
‘Everyone’s down at the pub at the moment, but maybe it’d be good if you gave Griff a call a bit later tonight.’
‘Yeah. I will. I’m at work but I just wanted to call and see how everyone was. Speaking of which, how are you?’
‘I take it you heard from Mum and Dad.’
‘Yeah, they called last night. I’m glad you finally told them.’ She heard muffled voices on the other end of the line before Linc came back. ‘I gotta go, but it’ll be good to get back home. I’ll see you soon.’
‘Give Mia and Cash a kiss for me,’ she said before saying goodbye and turning to walk inside.
It was sombre inside the old pub. Groups of people sat at tables, half-drunk beers in front of them. Hadley greeted a few people she hadn’t seen since her wedding and hoped she wouldn’t be going to hell for the little white lies she mumbled when asked how Mitch was going. Surely she’d be forgiven for that today.
She saw Griff and Olivia at a table towards the back of the room and made her way across to them.
‘I haven’t been able to get hold of Ollie,’ Olivia told her a few minutes later.
‘I was with him for a bit earlier. He wanted to get back home.’
‘I knew he’d be taking it hard. Mum said he was pretty cut up.’
‘He feels responsible,’ Hadley said with a long sigh. ‘Ollie thinks he let Luke down.’
‘Well, that’s ridiculous.’
‘I think he’s in shock … like the rest of us.’
‘You’re not wrong. I just can’t get my head around it. I mean, suicide?’ Olivia almost breathed the word, horrified. ‘There’ve been so many over the last few years around the place, but they’ve never been people we went to school with … people we really know, you know?’ Olivia said, searching her friend’s face.
Hadley shook her head slowly. Olivia was right, it was one thing to hear about it and only vaguely know who these people were, it was another thing altogether when it was someone you shared memories with.
There was a low hum in the room as people spoke quietly—so different to the usual roar—and Hadley felt a heaviness blanketing the room. She understood why Ollie had wanted to leave—it was suffocating. There was nothing to accomplish sitting here, and she knew that after a few more rounds shock and disbelief would lead to anger and frustration—not a great combination to mix with alcohol. Hopefully the fact that most people in the room were in the middle of harvest would cut things short, but some wouldn’t let that deter them from drowning their sorrows and finding an outlet for their grief. Hadley wasn’t going to hang around for that.
The sombre mood of the pub seemed to follow her home to Stringybark. There was so much going on inside her right now, she felt dizzy trying to separate it all. Maybe the Ollie incident was just a spin-off from shock—or grief—or both. That had to be it. It was so far out of the realm of anything she’d ever considered before that it had to be some kind of reaction. She slowly nodded as things began to fall into place and relief seeped through her, restoring calm. It was just a reaction. Completely normal, she told herself firmly in the mirror. Her respite lasted only as long as it took to walk to the house from her car, when a little voice whispered, But what if it wasn’t?
At the Pattersons’ place it could have been Christmas Day or a party of some kind going by the number of cars parked in front of the house and the people coming and going. Only it wasn’t. Ollie gritted his teeth against the sick feeling that rose at the thought of going inside. He didn’t want to face Luke’s parents like this. He didn’t want to see first-hand the devastation that would be on their faces. And part of him was terrified that he’d see something else … blame. Deep down he knew it was crazy and yet he couldn’t help but feel there had to be something he could have done to stop this from happening. Why wouldn’t Luke’s family blame him? He’d been one of the last ones to see their son alive.
His boots felt as though they were made of concrete, the weight of his steps slow and reluctant as he made his way up the path towards the house. He knocked and barely had time to drop his fist before Luke’s dad was there, pushing open the squeaky screen door with its peeling green paint. For a moment the two men simply stared at each other. The leathery skinned farmer looked tired, his eyes red-rimmed. Ollie tried to speak but nothing came out. He didn’t know what to say. Usually he’d just walk inside, calling out to Luke to hurry the hell up or they’d be late getting to the footy game. For the briefest of moments he expected Luke to appear behind his dad, but then he remembered, and was swallowed up again by the sorrow and despair brewing inside him.
‘Come in, son,’ Terry Patterson said gruffly. ‘Good to see you.’ He stood aside to allow Ollie to enter.
Alice Patterson moved around her kitchen, dodging the family and friends who stood by helplessly watching. He knew this reaction all too well. It was how his own mother dealt with stress. She couldn’t sit, she had to be doing something—anything but sitting
and thinking. He saw the concerned looks the women swapped and wished he could turn around and escape. Alice looked up at his arrival and summoned a shaky smile.
‘Hello, Ollie.’
‘Mrs Patterson,’ Ollie said, hoping his voice sounded stronger than he felt.
‘Would you stop calling me that. You’re a grown man now. Call me Alice,’ she said with a weary shake of her head. ‘Thank you for coming over.’ She looked older, as though she’d aged overnight. Her eyes, usually full of reluctant amusement, were dull, as though someone forgot to turn on the light inside on a grey, dreary day.
Ollie stepped closer and carefully hugged her. She felt smaller somehow, like a fragile bird, and he was scared of breaking her. Her grip, though, as she hugged him around the waist, was strong. For the briefest of moments he thought he felt her shoulders shake, but she pulled away quickly and turned back towards the counter, taking a mug from the cupboard. ‘You’ll have a cuppa?’ she said without turning.
‘Yeah. Sure,’ he said, looking over at the sympathetic faces of the women in the kitchen.
‘Here, let me,’ Alice’s sister said, taking the cup from her hand. ‘Why don’t you go and have a lie-down?’
‘No, no, I’m fine,’ she insisted doggedly.
‘I might just go out and see Terry for a bit,’ Ollie said, feeling as helpless as the others, unable to offer anything other than his presence.
The men were gathered in the lounge room, talking quietly. There was discussion about the weather and the recent footy scores, although it lacked its usual passion. It was just token conversation in lieu of discussing the massive elephant in the room. No one wanted to go there. What was the point? There were no answers, but the questions still hovered just under the surface. Why? There was an oppressive sadness—Ollie could feel its weight. His own grief and guilt pressed down on him. He risked a glance at Terry and saw the gritty-eye sorrow etched on his usually jovial face. He felt his own eyes sting. There was a reason no one was making eye contact with anyone here. It was all just too painful.
Ollie went through the motions for the next few days. He got up and went to work like he always did. He concentrated on the harvest and buried himself in the day-to-day running of it, knowing that he couldn’t afford to drop the ball. He’d worked too hard to get them where they were to pack it in now. His dad had finally started to ease up on the pressure, allowing him more freedom to run things. They were on track for a bumper year and he couldn’t risk making any stupid mistakes that might jeopardise that.
The relationship between his dad and himself had been a prickly one over the past few years. It had been all right when he’d been a kid and had just done what he was told, but once he’d got older, and had more of his own ideas, things had changed.
It wasn’t anything new. Plenty of his mates had the same story to tell. Hell, Griff and his old man fought like cats and dogs over how to do things too. It was only natural. His situation, though, was a little different in that he’d been forced to take over the property when his dad had had a serious accident the year before. For Bill, it had been difficult to let go of the reins when it hadn’t been of his own making. Ollie had taken over running of the place because he’d had to. He got how difficult it must have been for his dad—stuck in hospital and then rehab for most of the past year. He’d had a huge life change, and losing the ability to run the place as he wanted to was probably the biggest of those adjustments.
Ollie had tried to keep his old man in the loop as much as possible. His dad needed to feel part of everything still and Ollie had learned not to take what he said as some kind of challenge. He’d begun to listen and take notice of his dad’s suggestions. He’d lost the defensiveness he’d been carrying after the accident when his dad had come home expecting to pick up where he’d left off. They’d both had to learn a few things—not easy for two headstrong farmers living under the one roof. They still had their moments, but on the whole things ran smoothly.
Which was why he didn’t want to lose his focus now and risk some kind of stupid mishap ruining everything. It only took one dumb mistake, like forgetting to clean out under a harvester so it caught on fire, which had happened last year. It could have taken out the entire crop—and, worse, everyone else’s crops as well. He still felt sick to the stomach when he thought about it. He would never make that mistake again.
It was good that the crazy harvest season had gotten underway. It meant long days and nights in the harvester, which made him fall in bed and drift into an exhausted sleep. It gave him less time to be around people, and right now that was good. The only downside was that in a harvester there was way too much time to think.
He parked the machine and climbed down from the cabin, ready to head to bed, only he couldn’t yet. He still had to clean the harvester.
Diesel wandered over to him and he bent down to rub the dog’s head. ‘Hey boy.’ He missed his mate during harvest. He’d taken his dog in the harvester with him once and he’d had to keep stopping to open the cab door every few minutes because Diesel kept letting off the most toxic farts. Turned out his dog got car sick in a harvester.
He checked the various points under guards, where dust and chaff build-up could go unnoticed, making sure exhaust pipes and mufflers were free of chaff and then using the large air compressor to blow down the machine. He was just finishing when he saw his father ambling over. He was surprised to see his old man up this late.
‘Machine going all right? How’s it yielding?’ his dad asked, resting an arm on the front of the harvester.
‘Auger drive belt was slipping a bit but I tightened her up and she’s all good now.’
‘Good to hear. Yeah, so … your mother …’ Bill started, stopping to clear his throat. ‘She, ah, thought maybe …’ He trailed off.
Ollie frowned. He was beginning to get alarmed; maybe his old man was having some kind of stroke.
‘Well, the thing is, your mother’s worried about you.’
‘About me? Why?’
‘Over this Luke Patterson thing.’
‘What’s she worried about?’
‘Well, it’s not so much that she … we’re worried,’ he corrected gruffly. ‘I just want you to know that nothin’s ever bad enough to warrant doing what young Patterson did.’ Bill’s voice shook a little and there was a glisten in his eyes.
Ollie swallowed hard, his throat feeling as though it had seized up at his father’s unexpected emotion.
‘If something ever does go that wrong, you come to us. Got it?’ he said in a tone more brutal than the concerned expression on his sun-weathered face.
Ollie managed a quick nod, unable to trust his voice right at that moment.
‘Righto. Well, get back to it and then grab some sleep. It’s gonna be a bastard of a day tomorrow for everyone.’
He couldn’t have put it better himself. He’d been dreading it all week, and now it was finally here. Tomorrow they buried his mate.
Seven
Hadley climbed out of her parents’ car and spotted Griffin and Olivia nearby. It was rare to see her brother, or any of the men in town for that matter, dressed in suit jackets and pants and she wished it was for any occasion other than a funeral.
Both Griff and Ollie were to be pallbearers, and while dark sunglasses could hide red-rimmed eyes, they did little to disguise the torment and devastation in their body language.
Ollie was already at the front of the church, standing to one side quietly as they approached. While her parents were busy greeting neighbours and friends, Hadley moved over to him. He looked so alone, even in this crowd of people.
It was always so hard to say anything worthwhile at these things. How are you? How are you holding up? It was plain to see he wasn’t doing great, and he was barely holding up, so both greetings sounded ridiculous. She opted instead for no words, simply slipping her arm in his and hugging him tightly. He needed support now, more than words or empty-sounding platitudes. They all did.
Be
side him, she could feel the effort it was taking for Ollie to hold it together. He shouldn’t have to—none of them should—and, yet, that’s what he and pretty much every other generation of men here had been brought up to do. It wasn’t just the men—she’d also learned in her own line of work that to show weakness, particularly as a woman, whether it be in combat or during some horrific natural disaster, made her somehow less of a reporter. If she cried when she reported on the innocent victims of war—the wounded children in hospital, the little ones killed in bombings and wars around the world—then she was being an ‘emotional woman’.
At the same time, if she managed to speak to the camera dry-eyed and steadfast, she was a cold-hearted bitch. She really couldn’t win. But in order to get the jobs—to be chosen alongside male journalists—she’d had to learn how to mask her grief and do the job. Over time, that hardness had seemed to eat away at her. Her mother often looked at her with a sad kind of wonder as she’d told some awful story around the dinner table. She knew what her mother was thinking: Where did my passionate, kind-hearted daughter go? The one who’d been offended and outraged on behalf of some underdog, even as a child. She was still in there, but she’d learned not to let her emotions get in the way of the story she had to tell, because people in her line of business didn’t know how to react to displays of emotion. They knew how to exploit it well enough, they just didn’t know what to do with a TV journalist who cried each time she reported a horrific story. So she’d learned how to bury that part of herself.
It was harder today, when she personally knew the man … the boy she’d gone to school with. When she knew the family who stood here grieving for their son, and the friends who were left shocked and shaken by his sudden death. But she’d hold it together for everyone else’s sake—be the strong one who was able to talk when others couldn’t finish a sentence or find any words to say. It would be her job to be strong today, so others didn’t have to be.