Season of Shadow and Light

by Jenn J. McLeod

  ‘The note says TBA.’ Sharni exaggerated each letter. ‘How vague is T-B-bloody-A? Typical Rory, I reckon. The email’s time-stamped late yesterday, so that could mean anytime I s’pose.’

  ‘And what about the letter bearer?’ Paige decided on a change of topic to distract herself from her disappointment. Hopefully this Rory, whoever he was, was a few days away.

  ‘Letter bearer?’

  ‘As in G-I-bloody-L,’ Paige mimicked. ‘What’s going on there?’

  ‘Gil?’ The blush deepened, the nervous kookaburra laugh more pronounced. She grinned. ‘First time S-E-bloody-X. Friday—a week ago.’

  ‘Not good?’

  ‘No . . . I mean,’ she glanced across at the kids, slipped her arms forward on the railing and lowered her voice to a whisper. ‘Yes, good. Very good, in fact. At least I’m pretty sure I was.’ The chuckle continued, her body pushing back into the bar stool as she guided the drinking straw to her mouth. ‘Shame I don’t remember.’

  ‘Hello, ladies,’ Aiden said. ‘What’s so funny?’

  Sharni’s snort and the straw in her mouth forced an eruption of lemon squash bubbles and schoolgirl giggles.

  ‘Let me try that again with a not so difficult question maybe,’ Aiden said dryly. ‘Was that the Gildo I saw talking to you a few minutes ago?’

  ‘Don’t call him that.’ She swiped at the cook’s shoulder. ‘It’s not even funny.’

  ‘I think it is. What did he want?’

  ‘What’s it to you? He was just passing.’

  ‘Just passing and saw the lights on, hey cuz? Shame nobody’s home.’ Aiden knocked his knuckles playfully on the top of Sharni’s head, snatching his hand back before she had the chance to slap it away.

  ‘Haven’t you got something else to stir, sauce or something?’

  ‘Nothing as much fun.’

  ‘Then make yourself useful and carry those dirty dishes inside. I’m off duty until this wrist mends, and that includes doing your dirty work. After pouring a few beers today it’s really throbbing.’

  ‘You’re on kitchen duties helping me tomorrow night. The function was yours and Banjo’s idea.’

  ‘Sorry, big boy.’ She feigned pain. ‘Can’t anymore. Guess you’ll have to manage it all by your iddy, biddy self, because this nobody is going to be at home tomorrow night nursing her injuries.’

  As Aiden collected the empty plates with surprising obedience and headed back inside Sharni’s smile gave way to a contemplative expression.

  ‘You two get on so well,’ Paige said.

  ‘He’s not so bad—for an old bloke.’

  ‘He’s not that old.’

  ‘The big four-O in February makes him old enough.’

  Paige was about to say ‘Wow, me too,’ when Sharni added, ‘That’s old and crotchety in my book. At least that’s what I tell him.’ A pensive smile passed over her lips as she released her hair from the confines of the high ponytail, letting the long, luxurious blonde mane graze her shoulders. ‘Kinda feel sorry for the old bugger with all the crap he’s been through. Don’t suppose you fancy giving him a hand tomorrow night?’

  Paige shrugged her answer, her immediate thought to enquire about what sort of crap, but quickly deciding she had enough of her own to deal with without getting involved in someone else’s. Maybe she should consider making herself useful and helping out.

  Maybe.

  ‘You love your horses,’ Paige said, having noticed multiple tattoos when Sharni raised her arms to her ponytail.

  ‘These beauties? Nice, huh? This was my first.’ Sharni twisted her shoulder, scooped away her hair and adjusted the strap on her singlet top to reveal a horseshoe and four-leaf clover design. But this is my favourite. They’re brumbies.’ Three horses, manes and tails flying, galloped the soft flesh of Sharni’s upper underarms. ‘So, yeah, I am kinda hooked on horses. Probably because I was born in a stable.’

  ‘A stable?’

  Sharni laughed. ‘That expression of yours—right there—is pretty much the norm any time I make that announcement,’ she said. ‘Relax. No wise men. No guiding star. Just a couple of horses and a mum who decided helping the family out with a quick cattle muster in the third trimester was a good idea. Clearly, I thought so too and was keen to join the fun. So there I was, screaming my lungs out on a horse blanket on the stable floor. My love of horses grew with me. I rode every chance I got. Still do, but it’s never enough—until one of them throws me, or head-butts me. One day the old girl in the paddock whacked me so hard my face looked like an eggplant for weeks.’ She massaged her wrist where the support bandage wrapped around the base of her thumb.

  ‘The one you were working the other day is gorgeous.’

  ‘Wish that one was mine to keep. Hardest thing is letting them go.’

  ‘None of them are yours?’

  ‘Crap, no, if only . . . They aren’t cheap to keep and a horse is a life-long responsibility. I agist Minnie. A couple of them came with the property and Aiden’s, Rebel, might as well be mine.’

  ‘And the ones in the paddock down the street I see you with?’

  ‘Agistment. A Brisbane family bought a slice of land. Some locals are none too happy with big properties getting carved up all over the place. Aiden’s dad sold off some of his a while ago, much to his Lordship’s disapproval. But hey, he should’ve come home earlier, or at least shown some interest in the farm before now. Ant’s getting on and it’s a lot of work for Em on his own.’

  ‘Ant? Em?’ Keeping up with all the nicknames in this town was proving an onerous task.

  ‘Em is Eamon and Ant is Antony John Egan—Aiden’s father—the only butcher in the area for years. He worked hard with plenty of contracts and work on the side. Now Eamon does it all and manages a small herd and does butchery for locals. The land’s in his blood, but he’s not the brightest bull in the paddock. Not that it’s obvious to look at him. A slight defect. They’re half-brothers, in case Aiden hadn’t mentioned it,’ Sharni added.

  ‘He did. His family situation sounds . . . difficult.’

  ‘Poor old Ant’s not good for much anymore. Not since they discovered some sort of infection that buggered his brain. Sent him a bit blind, as well as a bit weird. I guess things hit hard enough when you have one wife leave. She ran off to the city, traded him in for a more exciting lifestyle.’ Sharni made little air quote gestures. ‘So the rumour goes. But when the second wife up and goes when the baby she pops out at forty-five isn’t quite right, well, that’s enough to push some blokes to the wall. Topping everything off, Ant contracts a rare condition.’

  ‘Condition?’

  ‘Toxoplasmosis. I’d heard about it when I was pregnant, but I thought you got it from cat poo. We were told not to let babies play in suburban sandpits.’

  ‘Really?’ Paige had heard something about that, but courtesy of Robert’s anti-fun garden designer she’d never again have reason to panic about Mati playing in a sandpit at home. There was no sandpit.

  ‘Toxoplasmosis-something-or-other. They think he contracted the disease from a contaminated animal during his time as a meat worker. No one knew until the disease had affected his central nervous system. Once the cysts form, in Ant’s case it was in his brain and one eye, there’s no getting rid of them.’

  ‘How terrible.’

  ‘Gotta hand it to Eamon. He’s managing to hang on to most of his acreage while plenty of others are going under the hammer. Every couple of years a little more land around here gets carved up into manageable chunks and sold off. The place I’m looking after was once massive.’

  ‘Aiden doesn’t help with his family property?’

  ‘He would only him and Eamon don’t see eye-to-eye on much. Farming for a start. He also doesn’t understand Aiden’s lifestyle choices.’

  The term lifestyle choices snagged Paige’s curiosity. She would have asked what Sharni meant had the girl paused for breath.

  ‘Bloody Eamon hates everything he doesn’t understand a
nd that includes Aiden and city people. Whereas I love city peeps bringing snatches of city life with them.’

  ‘How do you mean?’

  ‘Take the Brissy family. They’re nice enough. They come down for short stays throughout the year with loads of Darrell Lea Rocky Road and Foot Long Liquorice. And they pay me in cash for keeping an eye on their horses.’ She laughed. ‘Don’t tell them, but I’d do it for nothing. I sometimes imagine Nevaeh in its heyday, before it was carved up and sold off.’

  ‘Nev-arr?’

  ‘The best horse stud in these parts, so the story goes. All well before my time, but I wouldn’t have minded living here back when this town was full of horse properties of one kind or another. I reckon the Nevaeh property would have sold for a fair whack once.’ She shrugged. ‘Instead, the owners let things go after some sort of family rift. Why even hang on to a place and leave it empty if you’re not going to care about what happens? But hey, I’m not complaining. Very happy to pretend it’s mine. Not that Liam and me have many other options.’ She looked across at her son and her face brightened. ‘You do what you can and what you know and make the most of whatever that turns out to be.’ Her hand went to the note tucked in her top. ‘Only I’m likely to get kicked out of home if the place goes on the market. That would mean bunking at the pub or Aiden’s, and to be honest the way Aiden is about females . . .’

  ‘Not sure I understand.’

  ‘You haven’t noticed?’

  ‘Noticed?’

  ‘Aiden. If you look like a woman, smell like a woman, and sound like a woman . . .’ She leaned in and whispered as the man in question stopped a few tables away to chat with one of the SES guys, who’d pulled down his orange jumpsuit to his waist to expose a bronzed body under a blue singlet. ‘I’m simply saying there’s not a woman on the planet that would interest Aido. To be honest, I think the poor bloke is plain confused and doesn’t know which way to turn. Sad really. Hate seeing a good-looking guy go to waste.’ She winked. ‘Don’t tell him I said that, of course.’

  Paige was incapable of uttering a word after Sharni’s bombshell. That explained the lifestyle his brother didn’t understand. Aiden was gay? How had she not picked it? The tiny flutter of attraction she thought she’d felt in The Beast yesterday, the connection she’d felt, was nothing after all.

  That damn imagination of yours, Paige!

  ‘Hey,’ Sharni was saying. ‘Maybe something will come out of Rory’s homecoming. Maybe a home-coming—get it?—is exactly what Aido needs.’ She seemed to be enjoying the joke, oblivious to having doused Paige’s red-hot fantasy, the one she’d gone to sleep on last night. ‘Rory’s likely to help him out in that department, too. That was the rumour back then, so Gil tells me. All three were cadets with the same SES unit, but Gil had known both of them pretty good from their school days together. He said there was real chemistry between the pair; especially once Aido got the balls to come out and just admit his bloody feelings. When I say chemistry, I’m not talking science labs and Bunsen burners, if you know what I mean.’

  ‘Oh.’ Paige hoped her ‘Oh’ hadn’t registered her surprise or disappointment. Perhaps Sharni had hinted at Aiden’s sexual preferences the other day as well. She couldn’t exactly recall. She really did need some serious head-clearing time, especially after last night’s bedtime fantasy in which her imagination had turned Aiden into a modern day Mr Darcy, drenched body and all emerging from the river.

  The irony was not lost on Paige; Aiden didn’t sleep with women and her husband did. And now she was having to move out of the cottage to make way for this landlord.

  ‘I wish I’d known,’ Paige said. ‘I could’ve asked your real estate guy about an alternative place to stay.’

  ‘I can ring Gil. Or we can wait and see what TBA turns out to be. You might be heading home by then anyway.’

  ‘We could maybe get as far as Saddleton in a day or two, but from the bit I saw of it the other day . . . Well, a regional centre is far from the charming country town I was hoping Mati would experience. Certainly not as welcoming or as lovely as Coolabah Tree Gully.’

  ‘Then don’t go anywhere. Stay here. Stay with me.’

  ‘What about your landlord?’

  ‘No biggy,’ Sharni assured Paige. ‘You guys can be my guests in the main house. Makes perfect sense. There’s loads of room. The kids are hitting it off like old mates, and as for me . . . Having a chick around the place makes a nice change, not to mention handy child care.’ Sharni waved her bandaged wrist in the air. ‘Not sure why I didn’t suggest that to Banjo on day one. Don’t know why Banjo-the-organiser didn’t offer it himself. The old man must be slipping. Just as well, though.’

  Paige decided to take ‘the chick’ tag as a compliment. ‘I did tell Alice a couple of days. Then we’ll probably head off home.’

  ‘And cut your holiday short? Why? You’ve come all this way. The boatshed was supposed to be for two weeks, right?’

  Paige nodded defiantly, her resolve stiffening at the thought of facing Robert this soon. There was also no denying her curiosity about the source of Aiden’s schoolboy crush. ‘You’re right. I have come a long way.’

  ‘Okay then. That’s decided.’ Sharni glanced towards the open door to the bistro. ‘I’d better tell Aiden in case he wants to take Rebel back to his place, save him coming over if he doesn’t want to bump into Rory. Bloody landlords.’ Sharni shook her head. ‘Bloody bad timing. Aido will be none too happy about this situation.’

  Paige limited her many questions to one.

  ‘None too happy about what in particular? The landlord or the horse?’

  ‘Ha! Both I reckon. Heard the saying: Thick as thieves? Well, folks around town nicknamed the two of them “trouble on four legs”. I’d say the partnership managed to get up to plenty of mischief—before it all went pear-shaped.’

  Paige dared one more question, hoping the lilt in her voice made her sound no more than politely interested. ‘Pear-shaped how?’

  ‘Some major falling out, I s’pose. I wasn’t old enough to understand, or remember any details, and Aiden sure never talks about his past.’ Sharni stood to leave, clearly still agitated either by the letter or the letter-bearer, her fingers clutching the envelope. She waved the bandage-free hand and called across to Liam, her son’s head buried in a big plastic crate. ‘Come on, kiddo, pick up those toys and let’s go.’

  The toy box looked weathered, the toys well used, the far end of the veranda probably the boy’s play space since he was a bub. There was a gate that looked permanently latched open with cobwebs these days, but the carved wooden sign nailed crooked to the wall read: ‘Little Liam’s Lair.’

  Turning back towards Paige, Sharni said, ‘I’ll help you move your stuff first thing tomorrow. The sooner the better, I say. But maybe don’t bring Rory’s name up with Aiden. You know how temperamental chefs can be and you don’t want to be working with one tomorrow night—if you decide to, that is.’

  ‘Good thinking. I guess I can help.’ It was the least she could do.

  Now Paige had to hope Alice wouldn’t consider the move out of the cottage the last straw and push for them to head home as soon as possible. Even though Sharni’s disclosure that Aiden was gay had just stomped on the little fantasy that had occupied Paige’s head last night, it was still better than her reality, which she wasn’t ready to head back to yet.

  14

  Alice

  ‘You’re not serious?’ Alice stood in the kitchen of the main house, their new accommodation, staring at the woman she’d raised. The one-time fashionista with a flair for combining corporate chic with classic vintage was now Annie Oakley.

  ‘Why? Do I look ridiculous? Okay, I do, don’t I?’

  ‘No, no, of course not. You look . . . You look lovely. You always do. I am surprised. Where on earth did you acquire those boots?’ Alice said, baulking momentarily at sounding like her own mother. ‘As for that elaborate belt buckle . . .’

  ‘Sharni loa
ned them to me. And before you state the obvious about her being half my size—bust, waist and no doubt feet—they aren’t from her wardrobe. She said when she moved into the house there was a box of things in a throw-out pile in one of the sheds out back: riding gear, halters, books. Apart from being a self-confessed hoarder of anything remotely horse related, she kept the lot just in case.’

  ‘Just in case a big-footed out-of-towner needed to look the part?’

  ‘Very funny. She only found them again when we were moving our gear out of the cottage this morning. There were copies of The Silver Brumby books, too. Mati couldn’t wait to read them. Well, pretend to read them. I personally enjoy listening to her nonsense version. Did I read those books when I was young? I don’t remember.’

  ‘You read cookbooks and pretended you owned a fish and chip shop. I don’t know how many kitchen scoops I lost in that sandpit.’

  ‘I played in a sandpit?’

  ‘Don’t sound so horrified, Paige. Every child had one in those days. You’d serve pretend customers, filling brown paper bags with sand. Later you moved to wrapping lumps of bark or pine cones in newspaper to make fish and chip parcels. With you it was always about food. Cooking it. Serving it.’

  ‘It was, wasn’t it?’ Paige grimaced. ‘And yet Mati’s more into animals than food.’

  ‘I wonder if that means she’ll study veterinary medicine.’

  ‘Hmm,’ Paige hummed. ‘As long as she doesn’t bug me for a horse in the meantime.’

  ‘Anything’s possible, especially now her mother looks like a cowgirl.’

  ‘A butch cowgirl in these clodhoppers, I suppose. I do look ridiculous, don’t I?’ She stamped a petulant foot on the floor, the thud of the chunky boot startling a bark out of an exhausted Maltese-X, the dog’s long coat lousy with burrs—again. ‘Toto thinks so. I’m going to change.’

  ‘Don’t be silly.’ Alice grabbed her elbow. ‘I was making a joke. And please . . . Terms like “butch cowgirl” are not becoming. You know I dislike ugly labels for people. How about you explain the outfit idea again.’