Season of Shadow and Light

by Jenn J. McLeod

  ‘Aiden?’ Paige said, bemused.

  Sharni laughed. ‘No, the horse, but it is Aiden’s horse so maybe that says something.’

  ‘He’s gorgeous.’

  ‘Who? Aiden or the horse?’ Sharni returned with a wink and a wide smile that exposed a missing bottom tooth and a small silver tongue stud. Paige was liking the girl more every minute. ‘You could have him eating out of your hand,’ she continued. ‘Not many people manage that, but I’m sensing a bond. Of course, I’m referring to the horse again.’

  Paige decided not to encourage her further. ‘And what about this one?’

  The little bay had ambled over, showing no fear as it nudged the stallion out of Paige’s reach. The older horse retaliated with a toss of the head, a warning nip and a kick to the steel gate that separated them. The bay stepped back and shook his head in protest, spraying specks of caked dirt in every direction. Maybe that’s what Paige needed to do to shake off the layers of city life; just give herself a good shake. Right now, with the sun burning into the back of her neck through the dappled shade of the eucalyptus trees towering over her, Paige’s troubled home life felt a very long way away.

  The stallion wandered back, nudging Paige’s arm with his nose as if to say ‘Don’t stop.’

  ‘How old is he?’

  ‘The horse or Aiden?’ Sharni quipped. ‘Just kidding. Rebel here is about thirty. The bay . . . ? About ten—maybe. As for that one over there in the tartan coat, no idea.’

  ‘Thirty? Is that old for a horse?’

  ‘They can live even longer, which is why I get a bit pissed off that organisations spend thousands of marketing dollars every Christmas to tell dog and cat owners that pets are for life and to choose wisely. Horses not only live a lot longer, they cost more to keep. Dumping rates are shocking. Where’s the community education program to stop horses being let go and neglected, sometimes worse? Don’t get me started, hey boy?’ She slapped Rebel’s neck. ‘You’ve got a few more years in you yet.’

  ‘And you’ve earned the right to be a bit crotchety, too, haven’t you?’ The horse responded to Paige, each firm stroke of the horse’s neck and muzzle drawing any remaining angst from her body.

  While Paige hadn’t experienced the joy of animal company while growing up, their family unit too nomadic and Nancy’s allergies making anything furry a no-no, she had enjoyed her favourite soft toy version of a horse and, come to think of it, she’d had horse books and figurines too—lots of them; funny she was only remembering that now. These days Bean was Matilda’s to treasure and to Paige’s delight, Bean had become a favourite, even though years of mending had left the stuffed horse a little worse for wear. Anyone would have thought it was the only stuffed toy horse in existence.

  She was about to ask about the sad-looking one in the tartan coat when Sharni said, ‘Speaking of crotchety . . . About time.’

  At the sound of a straining engine and a barking dog, the horses bolted away from the fence. For an old boy Rebel put on quite a show, albeit briefly, before settling into a slower but slightly excited trot back and forth as Aiden approached the yard on foot.

  ‘How ya doing, fella?’ Aiden clicked his tongue in his mouth. The horse responded, mouthing the carrot chunks from Aiden’s open palm.

  ‘I gave these two a bit of a rub down this morning. Not that you can tell,’ Sharni said, arms folded across her chest, eyeing the muddied and matted manes on both horses.

  ‘Getting spoiled, old boy.’ Aiden tossed the remaining bag of carrots at his cousin and glanced at Paige. ‘Ready to get going when you are.’ He turned without waiting for a reply and said, ‘Best get on the road sooner rather than later.’

  ‘Hey, cuz, post this for me?’

  Aiden turned back, eyeing the envelope Sharni thrust into his swinging hand.

  ‘No worries.’ At the car he Frisbeed the small white square through his ute window so it wedged itself between the windscreen and dashboard of a vehicle that could have come straight off a Mad Max film set. ‘Hop in and we’ll get this show on the road.’

  Sharni opened then closed the passenger door for Paige, the car’s interior becoming suddenly small. ‘I’ll help Alice settle into the cottage while you’re gone and answer any questions. Drive safe, Aido.’

  ‘Yeah, yeah.’

  Aiden stopped briefly at the cottage so Paige could check on Matilda and grab her bag, a birthday present to herself last year, the kind with a trillion compartments to fit in all those little just-in-case items: her iPad, perfume, pills and makeup purse, plus Mati’s many hair accessories, hand wipes and clean handkerchiefs. Although tempted to change her clothes for the car trip, the barking dog and The Beast’s engine throbbing at an idle at the end of the path wouldn’t let Paige delay. The last thing she wanted to do was upset her lift, who’d not seemed too keen about having to tote a passenger along this morning. Opting instead for a squirt of perfume, she hurried passed Alice who was already unpacking their box of pantry items, had the kettle on the boil, a packet of Tim Tams open on the table, and Mati and Liam ensconced on the veranda with colouring-in pads and crayons. The cottage had all the makings of quaint: crayons, colouring-in pads, sun and fresh air.

  This was a dream, her good dream, the one in which she stripped herself of life’s excesses, along with all the sadness the city had come to represent. Despite getting lost yesterday, and the prospect of explaining gurgling toilets to Alice, Paige puffed up with a sense of achievement. The country had been the right choice after all. Better than Wet’n’Wild, especially given swimming wasn’t one of Matilda’s strengths; Paige needed to work on that once back in Sydney. But before that, Mati would learn new things here, while Paige, with no husband dragging her down and back to reality, would get to be whatever she wanted. Alice could do what Alice preferred to do: be close to Matilda, challenge her mind with Sudoku, read, and cook with farm-fresh produce. Yes, this was perfect. Paige hoped the change of scenery would be good for them all.

  And why wouldn’t it be?

  Who wouldn’t want to chill out for a while in a gorgeous place like Coolabah Tree Gully?

  7

  The Beast seemed aptly named, the truck’s mishmash of body parts and paintwork more armoured vehicle than automobile. Wired tight on the roo bar at the front was a set of mud-crusted buffalo horns, while the wild-looking dog barking incessantly on the ute’s back tray urged Paige to hurry. Still, she hugged Matilda goodbye like she was setting out on a solo adventure across the Nullarbor, not a fifty-kilometre car trip with a cranky cook.

  Barely twenty minutes out of the property’s long driveway Paige was wishing she’d taken the time to change out of the tight-fitting tank top. Had she known they’d be rattling over corrugated dirt tracks on a spring-loaded bench seat, her good sports bra might have been first choice. Thankfully the over-shirt she kept wrapped across her chest did the trick as the car jerked and rattled down a steep hairpin-bend section of road.

  While chatting briefly last night, and at the house that morning, Sharni had left Paige with the impression her cousin was a bit of a loner. So far, the man seemed to have all the charm of a cane toad. For some reason, the boorish cook had made Paige think about her brief encounter with the stranger in the mall. She hadn’t been terribly gracious on that occasion, ignoring the man’s apology and his offer to buy her coffee. Paige had simply wanted out of the place. Only at home that night had she thought about the man’s rushed explanation to the security guy. Maybe she should have stayed, listened to the whole story—the man’s obviously very sad story about love lost. Only Paige Turner had her own sad story. Then again, maybe hers would not have seemed so depressing compared to someone else’s. Alice would always tell Paige while growing up, ‘There’s always someone with a sadder story’.

  The springs in the bench seat continued to bounce over the corrugations, at one point forcing Paige’s head into the cabin roof. Everything bounced, even her face felt like it flapped up and down, exaggerating her almost for
ty years. The road conditions had changed dramatically with the car momentarily losing tyre traction as it lumbered up a stony incline. ‘Are you sure this was the best car to bring in these conditions?’ she yelled over the roar of the engine. ‘Isn’t it a bit . . . decrepit?’

  ‘Only certain parts.’ Aiden laughed, either that or it was a cough as dust, despite the dampness overnight, infiltrated the cabin at an alarming rate. ‘Best to treat ’em mean and keep ’em keen.’

  ‘Is that right?’ Paige returned.

  ‘Of course, that’s only when it comes to cars,’ he said with a quick sideways glance before accelerating when they hit a level section of road.

  ‘Good to know,’ she called back in competition with the dog on the back tray. The animal hadn’t stopped barking since they’d arrived at the property to pick her up. ‘Did the dog have to come?’

  ‘What?’

  ‘THE DOG!’ She glanced over her shoulder and through the crusted back window of the cabin, her ire fading as she glimpsed the flapping ears and floppy gums blown back by wind rushing at the animal’s face. Still the dog barked, biting at thin air, the rhythmic woof-woof not unlike a child calling out, ‘Faster! Faster! Faster-faster-faster!’

  ‘He’s called Cargo for a reason.’ Aiden seemed relaxed about the barking, surprising Paige. Most chefs she’d known were highly-strung, with short fuses.

  ‘Cargo is the dog’s name?’ She recalled Sharni saying something about ‘cargo’ back at the house. ‘Isn’t that an odd name for a dog?’

  ‘Not really. Where the car goes, the dog goes. Car-go.’ Aiden jerked the steering wheel, the car’s front wheels just missing the large lizard standing stony still and alert in the middle of the narrow dirt road. ‘Besides, we don’t get a choice any more, not since the bugger snapped a rope one day and chased Banjo into town. When Banjo slowed down, Cargo charged the tray-top, leapt on the back and slid headfirst into the window. See the crack down the centre?’ Aiden’s voice shook as the truck bumped and banged through several potholes. ‘We don’t try to stop him anymore. The dog loves it. I reckon he stands there with his face in the wind barking out, “Faster, faster, faster.”’

  ‘I was thinking the same.’

  ‘Oh, yeah?’ The curious glance in her direction suggested he’d heard the surprise in Paige’s voice. ‘He shuts up as soon as the motor stops.’

  ‘Right, I see.’ Great! So the dog was going to bark all the way there and back—wherever ‘there’ was. ‘How much further?’

  ‘Every turn of the wheel means we’re getting closer.’

  ‘Good to know.’ Such a supercilious response would normally annoy Paige, except she was in too good a mood. She also realised it was the kind of reply she’d given Mati yesterday when she’d asked for the umpteenth time, ‘Are we there yet?’ Paige guessed he had children of his own. ‘And you’re certain this is the best route?’

  ‘The only route. We can’t take the main road, even though it’s more direct. This way keeps us high. Until Drover’s Crossing,’ he added.

  ‘What happens at Drover’s Crossing?’

  ‘We cross,’ he said dryly. ‘The SES reckon South Arm is not due to peak for a few hours. Besides, Drover’s is never a problem. Not even in the big flood back in the fifties, so they say.’

  Paige ducked her head to peer into a perfectly clear blue sky with hardly a cloud, finding it hard to believe there was so much fuss over so little overnight rain. Admittedly, when the rain had hit just as she was getting sleepy, the thunderous torrent had continued for a long time, keeping her awake despite the metronome drip on the veranda outside her room.

  ‘Local rain is not the problem,’ Aiden said as if hearing her thoughts. ‘It’s mostly the monsoon rain and cyclones closer to the coast up north and over the border in Queensland. Our local emergency services keep an eye on the increase in river levels so they can calculate and plan for worst-case scenarios for river towns downstream.’

  ‘Worst-case scenario planning?’ Paige laughed as The Beast rattled across a narrow wooden bridge. ‘Maybe there’s a job in there for me. I’m an expert.’

  ‘Sorry? I didn’t hear that. WHAT DID YOU SAY?’

  ‘NOTHING!’ And there she was sounding no different to a six-year-old Matilda again.

  ‘Mind you, it’s been a long time since the town’s had to deal with water on this scale.’

  ‘Really?’ she replied, her voice timorous due to the rough ride.

  ‘I grew up in drought. The place was a dust bowl when I left. Now this.’ He shrugged.

  ‘Mother Nature,’ Paige offered. ‘You can’t figure her out.’

  ‘Of course you bloody can’t. She’s a woman, isn’t she?’

  That euphoria she’d been enjoying crashed. If Paige’s neck and back wasn’t in a lather of sweat from the vinyl seat and sticky summer temperatures, the hair on her neck might have bristled. And if not for her years in publishing, dealing with the very male-dominated food industry, she might have reacted. She instead employed her favourite tactic—silence—keeping her gaze fixed on the road stretching out beyond the dust-smeared windscreen, the morning sun heating her arm where it rested on the passenger windowsill.

  The Beast might be putrid, but the rain last night had washed this part of the world clean, leaving the clouds whiter and the sky bluer than she’d ever recalled seeing in Sydney. How was it possible to be in danger of drowning from floodwaters when everything looked so perfect?

  Paige guessed that the same could probably be said for a marriage that for all intents and purposes looked clear and sunny from the outside. In private, she and Robert were drowning. Their very own perfect storm had blown in without warning, the convergence of infidelity, insecurity and indifference leaving Paige yet to understand the full damage bill.

  She gasped, her body jerking forward as Aiden slammed a foot on the brake, the seatbelt snapping her back into place so hard the elastic band on her ponytail shook loose. A muddy, brown current—not wide, but fast flowing—lapped over the road bridge a few metres in front, with tree branches, long grasses, and debris caught in the bridge’s safety rails clearly defining the edges of the partially submerged roadway.

  ‘Drover’s Crossing?’ she assumed, examining the concentration in Aiden’s face as the vehicle’s gear-stick crunched and fought back under his hand. Paige then followed his lead, closing her vents and winding the window up, her stomach tightening as The Beast’s tyres nudged the water’s edge. ‘Doesn’t the SES recommend against entering floodwaters?’

  ‘These aren’t floodwaters. She’s only lapping the bridge. We’ve avoided the much wider main arm of the river by coming this way. That debris you can see caught in the rails will be the result of last night.’ Then as if he’d sensed Paige’s reluctance, he added. ‘Don’t worry. I’ll have you in Saddleton and safely back with the family in time for tales by the campfire. Isn’t that what these country road trips are all about to you city folk?’

  Paige bit her lip and fiddled with the hair band in need of another loop to tighten the ponytail. Now was not the time to take offence. ‘If you say so.’

  ‘I know what I’m doing.’

  ‘That makes one of us.’

  ‘I’d say you know what you’re doing.’

  His comment fascinated Paige. ‘Oh?’

  ‘You’re a mother looking out for her child, right?’

  Paige nodded, her hands tightening on either side of her legs, pressing into the cracked vinyl of the bench seat, her feet bracing the floor. ‘Yes, but right now I’m wondering why I didn’t let you get the prescription filled.’

  ‘I don’t think I’d ask a stranger to collect any sort of drugs for my daughter. We’re not immune to crazies out here in the country. You haven’t seen Wolf Creek, the movie?’

  Paige wanted to smile, tell him she’d had her own Wolf Creek concerns yesterday, but as the car crept closer to the centre of the bridge, she worried her expression would be more of a grimace, frozen by fear. />
  ‘By the way.’ His nod indicated towards Paige’s feet. ‘I’m not sure which is more rotten: the thirty-year-old car mats or the rusted floor of the foot well underneath them. Whichever, I’m thinking you might find your feet doing a Fred Flintstone if you don’t ease up on those imaginary brakes.’

  Okay, so this guy liked to make jokes. At least she hoped he was joking. Paige repositioned her feet to the foot well’s perimeter, just in case.

  ‘When I heard you had an important fresh produce delivery that couldn’t wait I imagined . . .’ She glanced at the two plastic milk crates tied to the tray-top with fluoro yellow straps. ‘Well, something slightly more significant in size.’

  ‘It’s about quality not quantity.’ Aiden struggled with the gear lever, cursing under his breath with each crunching sound. ‘And you don’t build up a good business reputation by letting people down.’

  Paige relaxed a little, feeling surprisingly comfortable as Aiden’s conversation turned to food. It helped that they were on the other side of Drover’s Crossing. The worst of the outward trip over, hopefully, The Beast’s chunky wheels clawed their way up the muddy incline.

  Every now and then Paige reminded herself there was a level of urgency to this trip. Floodwaters were not to be taken lightly, despite Aiden’s apparent take-it-in-his-stride attitude. To stop herself thinking about worst-case scenarios, she decided to hone in on the subject of Aiden’s food business; the sort of conversation in which Paige Turner could hold her own. Once he explained his fresh food philosophy and his opinion on the next two big things in the food and catering industry—bison and goat—she forgot all about the barking dog and the bouncy ride. The man was talking her language, the kind of intelligent conversation she used to enjoy over an after-work drink.

  She and Aiden discussed everything from eggplant to food politics and small business economics. Aiden talked mostly, his excitement increasing when he cited two examples of rural entrepreneurial opportunities, farmers leading the way: a bison breeding program-cum-farm stay business somewhere between Casino and Tamworth, and a Dorrigo-based farmer doing great things with goat product. The discussion made for a nice change. Having a man interested in Paige’s opinion, even if he didn’t agree with her one hundred per cent, was rare these days.