To Lucy’s surprise, it was Mel who eventually commented. ‘Usually hate spinach. But this stuff isn’t half bad, Lucy.’
But then Billie discovered a large white cooked grub ensconced in a spinach leaf. A fuss ensued and she refused to eat any more of it. Seeing Lucy’s disappointment, Cooper rushed around the table, fork in hand, and scooped up the remainder of Billie’s serving. ‘I love this stuff!’ he declared, wolfing it down. ‘Grub or two won’t hurt you,’ he added as he went back to his seat. ‘Just ask old Mollie. Full of protein.’
A moment later, they heard a ute arriving. Ted soon came in and sat down. He served up his meal, taking some of the spinach along with everything else. Lucy watched surreptitiously as he ate a few of the other things on his plate. Finally he scooped up a small forkload of the spinach. Forgetting herself in her anxiety, Lucy placed her cutlery down and stared. Ted opened his mouth; his fork was on its way in when he caught her eye and stopped.
‘Did I miss something?’ he asked, lowering his fork.
‘Oh . . . no, it’s just the spinach.’
He turned his fork this way and that, inspecting it. ‘Looks all right to me.’
‘It is all right!’ Molly called along the table. ‘A grub or two won’t hurt you. Full of protein!’
Comprehension dawned on Ted’s face. ‘Ah, the spinach!’
‘Yes.’ Lucy nodded and watched his face keenly while he tasted some.
He chewed thoughtfully, then delivered his verdict. ‘That’s damn good spinach.’
Lucy suddenly laughed. Her confidence boosted, she turned to Dennis, who met her eye warily.
‘No way, mate,’ he began to protest. ‘I never eat spinach. Can’t stand the stuff.’
Lucy maintained her stare.
‘Oh, righto then, let’s have it.’ Dennis spooned a small pile onto his plate and eyed it. Mel watched him dubiously. All at once, with an air of resolution, Dennis took up his fork again, scooped up the lot and put it into his mouth. He chewed rapidly a few times, his face screwed up, and swallowed hard, following it quickly with a large sip of water. ‘Happy now?’ he asked.
‘Oh yes!’ Lucy cried.
‘So you should be,’ Mel said wryly, her eyebrows raised. ‘There’s no other woman on earth who could make him eat spinach.’
‘Well, I’m truly honoured,’ said Lucy. And she meant it.
That evening, still thrilled by her success at dinner, Lucy strode out on her walk, the chill of evening fresh on her face and the remains of the day lingering as pink streaks in the darkening sky. Her dusk walks had become an entrenched ritual, and the solitary half hour was her favourite time. Out in the open, she could mull over all the events of the day, nut out problems and work off her frustrations. But tonight her musings were abruptly interrupted when an unfamiliar ute overtook her and lurched to a halt in the middle of the road. It was a company vehicle, judging by the printed slogan and reflective striping, with two large steel storage units on the back. She’d seen it driving over the grid into Charlotte’s Creek that morning but hadn’t given it another thought.
A nuggetty ginger-haired man clambered out with some difficulty. He stood beside the tray, waiting for Lucy to approach. As she came closer, he looked around quickly, then back at her, his demeanour undeniably sheepish. Lucy, a little alarmed, stopped a short distance away. Wordlessly he stepped out from beside the ute and held out his leg towards her. He wore long khaki work pants; clamped tightly over the ankle of his heavy leather boot was a dingo trap.
Lucy gasped. ‘Are you all right?’
‘It doesn’t hurt, if that’s what you mean,’ the man answered peevishly. ‘But do you think I can get this dratted thing off?’
‘I’ll see what I can do.’ Lucy hurried forward.
It was an old-style dog trap, like the one she’d seen Ted set in Ginger Ridge the day before, with two heavy steel arms that had sprung upwards on either side of the jaws, clamping them tightly onto the man’s boot. He stretched his trapped foot out in front so that Lucy could straddle it to stand up on the raised arms of the trap, in the hope of lowering them enough to release the jaws. The position required her to stand uncomfortably close to a complete stranger, and Lucy could see from the man’s expression that he was equally ill at ease. She bounced urgently on the bars, grunting with annoyance when they budged not a fraction under her weight.
‘I don’t think I can do it,’ she panted eventually, stepping away from the unhappy-looking captive. ‘Come back to the house and one of the men will be able to get it off.’
The man looked even more disgruntled, and Lucy guessed he’d been hoping to save face by getting her to rescue him.
‘Can you drive a manual?’ he asked, looking at her doubtfully.
‘I’m still a learner, but I can drive you back if you like.’
He gave a curt nod. ‘Yes, please. Driving with a trap on is a bit of a challenge.’
They started for the homestead, Lucy pleasantly surprised by how easy the vehicle was to drive compared to the old Landcruiser. Lucy left the man at the shed and went to find Dennis and Ted at the yards where they were using the last of the light to mend a gate that a bullock had smashed that day.
‘What the bloody hell have we got here?’ Dennis said jubilantly when he and Ted approached the trapped man standing beside his vehicle in the darkening shed. ‘You’ve gone and caught yourself a geologist, Goldy!’
The ginger-haired man glared at Dennis.
‘Didn’t think there were any traps in Round Mountain,’ Dennis went on. ‘You set any up there lately, Goldy?’
‘Nope,’ Ted replied. ‘That there trap he’s wearing, we set in Ginger Ridge on the spur above the dam.’ Ted gave Lucy a surreptitious look.
‘So . . .’ Dennis tilted his head to one side and scrutinised the man. ‘You got sprung, eh? Doing a bit of extra exploration. Ted here would’ve busted you, anyway. He can track as good as any blackfella, read tyre tread better than writing on a page.’
‘I just followed the same quartz ridge along,’ the man said tersely.
‘Oh, yeah?’ Dennis narrowed his eyes. ‘Out of bounds though, wasn’t it. Only Round Mountain, your mob said.’
The geologist cleared his throat awkwardly and glanced at Lucy.
Dennis stepped closer, craning his neck as if to examine the geologist’s hair. ‘How much do you reckon your boss’d give us for your scalp?’
The man drew himself up defensively to his full five feet.
‘It’s the right colour to pass for dingo,’ Dennis continued, ‘just a bit mangy on top, that’s all. How far down your back does it go?’
‘Are you going to get me out of this thing or not?’ the geologist snapped. ‘It’s getting late.’
‘Well, that depends.’ Dennis rubbed his chin, considering. ‘If you can agree to go back and tell your cronies that Charlotte’s Creek has bugger-all minerals on it, then I could get you out in a jiffy.’ He leered wickedly. ‘Otherwise . . .’ He ran his hand up and over his head like a scalping blade, making a slicing noise with his tongue.
‘Don’t be ridiculous,’ the geologist scoffed.
Dennis looked at Ted. ‘I’ll go and pack up the gear. You can do the honours, since you caught him. I’ll decide whether we prosecute him for trespassing once we hear what he’s writ in his report.’ He walked off, still sniggering to himself.
Without further ado, Ted released the man by placing his great leather boots on either side of the trap. The geologist immediately took off his boot and rubbed his ankle. ‘Well, that’s a first for me,’ he said, trying to sound light-hearted.
‘Same here,’ agreed Ted. ‘Never caught a geologist before.’ He met Lucy’s eye and winked, his face still deadpan. ‘What were you doing there anyway, mate?’
‘I was just curious as to why there was a bit of surveyor’s tape tied to a tree in the middle of nowhere.’
‘Thinking like a dog,’ Ted observed. ‘Sniffing round where you’re not wanted.’
The geologist flashed a nervous smile in Lucy’s direction then looked back at Ted. ‘Well, I’ll know for next time,’ he said briskly.
‘Yeah, and so will we,’ Ted replied.
The man wasted no time in getting into his vehicle and driving away, leaving Lucy and Ted standing side by side in the twilight.
‘Never a dull moment in this place.’ Lucy laughed and looked up at Ted. But he seemed to be contemplating her face, his expression serious; feeling instantly self-conscious, she looked quickly down.
‘So you really like it out here?’ Ted asked at last. ‘Novelty hasn’t worn off yet?’
‘I think I’ll find it hard when I have to go back to live in a city.’ Lucy forced herself to meet his eyes again, golden in the warmth of the last light, and tried to slow her heartbeat. Being close to Ted always seemed to have this effect on her lately.
His eyes searched her face, and he seemed to be on the verge of saying something. Suddenly Mel’s irate voice floated over from the house, as she chased the two older children out onto the veranda, ranting at them to clean their teeth.
‘’Night, then,’ Ted said, and with a small salute to Lucy, he strode away, leaving her standing there wondering what had been on the tip of his tongue.
Chapter 26
The children had been working well for weeks now, but the term was coming to an end and Lucy felt that both she and they were flagging somewhat. As Mel’s pregnancy had progressed she’d begun to lean more heavily on Lucy to look after the kids, concentrating instead on getting everything else in order before the new arrival. ‘My babies squawk non-stop for the first twelve weeks,’ she’d warned Lucy. ‘Bad colic. You watch, I won’t be able to get a bloody thing done.’ So she’d been occupied with the books and the accounting, placing advance orders for stock feed and with the steel distributor, organising contractors for upcoming jobs on Charlotte’s Creek, and contacting agents to arrange cattle sales for the next few months.
As a result, Lucy had been extremely busy for quite some time. On the Friday afternoon following her encounter with the trapped geologist, when school was finally done for the day, she found herself feeling restless. The past few weekends had been uneventful too, and with all the time she’d been spending with the kids, Saturdays and Sundays were tending to merge into the rest of the week. With Gwen away overseas, she hadn’t even had those brief Saturday morning respites in the peaceful, well-ordered house under the mango trees. In any case, after what she’d learned from Adam and Ted, she wondered if those visits would have given her much pleasure.
As she made her way across to the house to help with dinner, she spotted Ted loading up the back of his ute, preparing to head home to his block for the weekend. She wished she could stow away in the tray, drive over the grid and away down the road with him. Before she realised what she was doing, she’d wandered over.
‘G’day.’ His eyes twinkled at her in greeting.
‘Off home to Little Leichhardt?’ she asked wistfully.
‘Yeah, mate. Soon as I’ve finished here.’
‘I guess you really need a break by the time each weekend comes.’
‘Not as much as you, I’d reckon. Those kids . . .’ He whistled and shook his head.
Lucy laughed. ‘I just wish I had their energy.’
‘Maybe I should take them up to my place and make them help me with my fencing, since they’re so full of beans,’ Ted said. ‘It’s bloody slow on your own, and that’d soon wear them out.’
‘Fencing? Is that what you’re doing this weekend?’ asked Lucy. ‘Doesn’t sound very relaxing.’
‘I love working when it’s for myself,’ Ted explained. ‘For my own place. Never did see the point of putting your feet up when there’s more jobs to do than you can poke a stick at. And I’m ducking out to see Stumpy on Sunday arvo. On the hoof again he is, with a mob of six hundred.’
‘Now that would be worth seeing,’ Lucy said, more to herself than to Ted. Then, focusing on his face again, she asked, ‘Does anyone ever help you with your work?’
‘I never asked them to,’ he answered. ‘I just poke along steady.’
‘I could help you! I mean, me and the kids,’ Lucy quickly amended. She didn’t want him to think she was inviting herself over for the weekend. ‘I’ve never seen how fencing is done.’
Ted regarded her thoughtfully for a moment, and a little suspiciously, Lucy fancied. She suddenly felt embarrassed. ‘That is . . . I probably wouldn’t be any use.’
‘You got two hands and a heartbeat, haven’t ya?’ Ted observed. ‘Another person is always a plus with fencing.’
‘I’ll go and ask Mel!’ Lucy cried joyfully and ran off towards the house.
But when Lucy offered to relieve her of the children for the weekend, the tired woman shook her head. ‘I wouldn’t do that to you,’ she said, smiling wanly. ‘Anyway, I’m supposed to be taking the kids to Keenes’ for a swim tomorrow. Coop and Billie want to sleep over. You go along with Ted. God knows, you must need a break from us by now.’
Twenty minutes later, not quite sure how it had come about, Lucy found herself in Ted’s ute, driving into the setting sun towards his block on the western boundary of Charlotte’s Creek. After Mel’s suggestion, she’d rushed to her cottage, thrown a few clothes into a plastic bag and joined Ted in the ute, ignoring the sensible voice in her head that was telling her to stop and think about what she was doing. However, now that she had stopped, and was seated, with the unspeaking Ted beside her, the sensible voice was ringing out insistently, loud and clear.
In her rush she’d forgotten her boots, and brought no food and no bedding. And why had Lucia Francis thrown herself into a situation where she would be spending the weekend alone with a man? What would her mother say if she knew? At the very least, Lucy should have brought a separate vehicle. And why was her trust in Ted so absolute? She barely knew him. Even more bemusing, why did she like him so much? Full of regret for her impulsiveness, she looked sideways at the ringer. With dismay, she realised that he too appeared far from pleased. His usual grim expression had intensified and he was looking positively gloomy. Becoming aware of her gaze, he glanced across at her.
‘Ted,’ she faltered, ‘I never meant . . . When I invited myself along, I didn’t—’
‘Settle down, mate,’ he said, cutting her short. ‘No need to draw any lines. I’ve had my own line drawn up since I was twelve. I’m not such a duffer that I’d read anything into this.’
‘Oh,’ Lucy said gratefully.
‘Nothing sinful in a bit of fencing,’ Ted added, and grinned.
Lucy smiled back; then, looking at his dimple, she laughed out loud in her relief.
The Little Leichhardt house had seen better days. It was a large, rambling timber structure, two houses really, connected by a collapsing breezeway. One of the buildings had completely fallen into ruin, and the other was not far behind. The stumps and the floorboards under the better part of the house looked relatively new, but the walls were patched in places, the iron roof was almost entirely rusted, and sections of the veranda rails were rotted through.
Ted looked apologetically at Lucy as he rolled out his swag on the veranda. ‘Not the best, is it?’
‘It’s got plenty of character,’ Lucy said, amused. ‘What happens when it rains?’
‘Well, believe it or not, when it’s bucketing down, not a drop gets in. But in light rain, leaks like a bloody sieve.’
‘How odd!’
‘As long as you’re dry in bed,’ he answered. ‘That’s what I always say.’
Ted cooked a simple meal of sausages, toast and baked beans, which they ate at a little table under a darkly stained, sagging ceiling and a single dangling light bulb. At first they ate in silence, then Lucy asked Ted a few questions about his property, and he became unusually chatty, telling her some of his plans for Little Leichhardt. Then, just after dark, Ted stood up.
‘You can have my room,’ he declared, then, nodding a
t Lucy, he departed for the night, out to his swag on the veranda. Lucy sat alone for a while, wondering what she’d learn if the walls of this tumbledown house could talk to her. Then, after finding a bed in one of the more liveable rooms of the house, she returned to the kitchen to hunt for the light switch and turn it off.
The next day, after fitting her out with a man’s long-sleeved shirt, an old felt hat and some monstrous gloves, Ted took Lucy fencing. Once they’d set themselves up beside a sentinel-like row of new posts, Lucy watched in fascination as Ted sat a heavy roll of barbed wire on an old concave plough disc and speared a crowbar through the centre hole of both, and into the dirt underneath. The roll was effectively a giant spool, and unravelled just like an oversized bobbin when Ted hooked the end of it into a makeshift steel handle and pulled, walking along the fence line. He attached it to the strainer post at the far end, then walked back towards Lucy.
‘Have you got hairy legs?’ he asked.
‘Um, they are a bit at the moment . . .’ Lucy said confusedly. ‘I haven’t bothered to . . .’
But Ted was grinning. ‘Like a draughthorse, see? You reckon you’re strong enough to snig a wire?’
Lucy took the handle of the hook in her gloved hands and, fumbling with the end of the wire, finally managed to attach it. Leaning forward, she pulled hard and the roll began to unravel, but the pulling became progressively harder. She stopped and looked back.
‘Yeah, I reckoned you’d be a bit weak for that job,’ Ted called. Lucy gritted her teeth, gripped the hook and hauled with all her might; it began to move again. Ted chuckled. ‘Works every time.’
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