Tammy shuffled the aged care coordinator out the door, and into the passage. ‘You’ll have to excuse my uncle, Susan. He’s having trouble adjusting to the fact he needs assistance.’
Susan patted Tammy’s arm. ‘No worries. We get this all the time. It’s a terrible shock to lose your independence. Makes the oldies lash out at everyone they love.’
And Tammy suddenly realised Susan thought that she, Tammy, needed comforting. ‘Oh, no! You’ve got it wrong. I get this all the time. He doesn’t love me. He hates me, actually.’
Susan smiled. ‘Now where did you get that idea from, love?’
‘What idea?’ Travis Hunter loomed up beside Tammy, making her jump. How on earth did the man approach so silently? He was like an apparition.
Susan looked at Trav questioningly and he stuck out his hand. ‘I’m Travis. Joe’s next-door neighbour. Soon to be part-time carer.’
Tammy glanced up at him in shock. The man was volunteering information? Then she noticed he was smiling that half-grin and Susan was melting like ice-cream. Oh, good Lord. Please.
Tammy pushed Trav towards Joe’s room. ‘Go talk man-to-man stuff with the old bugger. He doesn’t want anyone helping him, no bars in the bathroom, no aids, no home help, no district nurse and definitely no Meals on Wheels.’
‘I can understand that. Mum had them once. Those meals are terrible.’
Trav disappeared through the door and Tammy found herself apologising once again to Susan.
‘So what do you want to do?’ Susan was now looking down at her clipboard, a little rosy flush on her cheeks. ‘Shall I give him everything he’s entitled to? Only some? Or nothing? But if you’re going to say nothing I urge you to reconsider.’
Tammy didn’t even have to think about it. ‘We’ll take all of it. Even the meals. We can always cancel if we find we don’t need something.’
Susan ticked all her boxes and scrawled some notes down the bottom of the page. Tammy wondered if they included Abusive old man and dysfunctional family situation – BEWARE.
Finally Susan snapped her pen into a holder hanging around her neck and rammed the clipboard under her arm. ‘The occupational therapy people will sort out what aids he requires – a toilet chair, walker, et cetera. They’ll also need to measure up for grab bars. We’ll give you a ring to sort out a time. They’re pretty busy.’
‘That’s okay. We might be able to fit them ourselves.’
‘Right,’ said Susan. ‘Here’s my card if you want to call me. I’ll be his care coordinator from now on. Ring if you need anything.’ But before she stepped away, Susan seemed to take a deep breath. Was she going to tell her they were all wasting their time and he should be in a nursing home after all? ‘Love?’ said Susan.
Tammy couldn’t stand it when people called her love or darling. They had to earn the right to use those words.
Susan put her hand on Tammy’s arm. ‘He does care about you, you know. I can see it in his face.’
Tammy ducked her head. Mmmm . . . If only she could believe that.
At the sight of Boots and Digger running excitedly in circles, tears welled up in Old Joe’s eyes. I should have smuggled one of the dogs into the hospital, Tammy thought. Maybe that would have made it easier to manage the bloke.
As the old man carefully climbed out of Trav’s ute, Boots threw himself at his master, causing him to totter on his walking frame. On the advice of the occupational therapists at the hospital, Trav had hurriedly brought in a few bucketloads of dirt and gravel with the tractor and made a rough-looking ramp next to the steps up to the verandah. They put the old man into a wheelchair and pushed him up to his usual spot, looking out over the eucalypt bush, blue-grey mountains and verdant green flats. Joe breathed in the fresh late afternoon air and sighed. A deep, gentle, happy sigh. ‘Ah, this is the life.’ After a week of pain, anger, confusion and frustration, his face finally relaxed, making him look ten years younger.
‘Can I get anyone some dinner?’ Travis was calling from the back of the house, where he’d disappeared with Joe’s bag.
Beside Tammy, Old Joe grunted. She’d made the casserole and left it in Joe’s fridge while Jock had been doing overtime, trying to make up for the bloat incident. She didn’t even want to think about that night. She’d lost nearly six thousand dollars’ worth of cows in one go. But then again, it could have been a whole lot worse – and would have been without the help of the man now in the kitchen. ‘I’ll have some tea. What about you, Joe?’ The old man waved his hand in the air, a negative response.
‘Joe’ll have some too,’ she called out to Trav.
The old man frowned at her but to Tammy’s surprise didn’t say anything. There seemed to have been a truce drawn somewhere in the last week or so. The last big argument she and Joe had was when she was unpacking his clothes at the hospital. ‘I don’t need no fancy new pyjamas! What’s wrong with the ones I had?’
Billy had weighed into that argument, thank goodness. ‘Mr McCauley,’ the young boy’s voice had quavered first up but then gained strength, ‘you can’t be in hospitable with those awful PJs you had. People’d laugh at you for being different.’
‘It’s “hospital” not “hospitable”,’ Joe’s voice was gruff. ‘And I don’t care if people laugh at me for being different. I’ve been different all my life. Nothing wrong with that, boy.’ But the old man’s tone was softer than Tammy had ever heard before.
Under Billy’s earnest gaze, Joe finally took the proffered blue-and-brown striped pyjamas, mumbling, ‘Fucking stripes. Always hated stripes.’ He then glared at Tammy. ‘And different, he says. These pyjamas is bloody different. What happened to plain old blue or brown, I ask you?’ But there had been a tear in his eye that he’d swiftly dashed away. Maybe he realised they were only trying to help because since then he hadn’t been anywhere near as frosty or horrible to her.
Beside Tammy, Joe leaned down, searching for Boots’s ears to ruffle. He breathed in the damp mountain air that was starting to waft across from the slopes. ‘Going to be rain in the next few days,’ he said, sniffing hard.
‘How do you do that?’
‘What?’
‘Know about the rain.’
She could tell he was about to shut her down with some smart-arse comment. Then he stopped, shrugged. ‘Don’t rightly know how. I just know.’
‘But what did you take into account to make that observation?’
‘The smell on the breeze; studying them hills. See how they look like they’ve picked themselves up and moved in closer to us? Like they need protection from something? And they’ve turned a real dark blue.’
Tammy took a closer look at the mountains. He was right. They did seem like they were scared.
‘And the birds are flying low rather than up high like they do in fine weather,’ Joe’s voice rumbled on beside her. ‘Then I take in the paddocks on Montmorency Downs. You’ve just irrigated, am I right?’
Tammy nodded. ‘Yes. I finished yesterday.’
‘And it usually rains within a day or two of you finishing.’
She glanced down at the old man and saw two twinkling cornflower-blue eyes staring right back at her. ‘Holy hell,’ she said in wonder. ‘You’re making fun of me, aren’t you?’
They were all seated around Joe’s table. Tammy and Billy had the only two chairs, having dragged another one in from the front lounge. Trav was sitting on an upturned twenty-litre drum he’d rooted out of the shed and Joe was perched on his new wheelie walker. If anyone had been peeping through the window it would have looked like any regular family sitting down to dinner. Mum, dad, son and maybe granddad. Very congenial. It was anything but. The tension in the air was palpable.
Billy was on edge as if he was trying to second guess what he was supposed to do. Joe was shooting dagger looks at all of them, like it was him against the rest of the world. He obviously
just wanted them to leave him alone. And Travis? He was silent and brooding. As if he was finally realising what a big job it was going to be to look after this irascible old man.
Their next big problem was how to get the patient to bed. He couldn’t sleep on the camp stretcher in his swag any more. It was too low, and he’d never be able to get into it, let alone out of it. Tonight they had to install Joe in the bedroom where he should have been sleeping in the first place, and somehow fix the gaping hole in the ceiling to stop the possum shit from falling through.
Then there was the problem of bathing. How were they going to get Joe into that shower? It was the size of a dog kennel. His walking frame barely fitted between the walls.
Suddenly a car door banged shut and they all jumped out of their skin. ‘Who the fuck is that?’ the old man muttered.
‘Hi all!’ yelled Lucy from the verandah, where she was obviously kicking off her shoes. She bounced inside, and down the passage to the kitchen doorway. ‘I’ve brought your groceries, Joe. Thought I may as well bring them on up rather than leave them by the gate. It’s not like you can drive or anything –’ Lucy stopped and took in the four pairs of astonished eyes staring at her. ‘What? What have I done?’
She looked puzzled for a moment then flung a hand to her head. ‘Haven’t you seen anyone with coloured hair before?’
Tammy was the first to recover. ‘Luce. Oh, Luce . . . what have you done?’
Lucy grinned wickedly and spun in a circle. ‘Like it?’
‘Ummm . . .’ Trav went next. ‘Well . . . it’s colourful.’
‘I couldn’t decide.’ Lucy patted at the halo of pink, blue, red and brassy yellow streaks. ‘As long as I don’t look like a chook. Couldn’t bear to look like something that shoots bumnuts.’
‘No, not a chook,’ said Billy. ‘Maybe a clown?’
Lucy laughed. ‘Clown I can deal with! Anyway, it makes a statement. And the oldies at work love it. They figure they’re not the only ones going slightly senile.’
Outside, another car door banged shut. ‘Fuck! What is it with this place lately?’ growled Joe. ‘As if I haven’t got enough to deal with here with you mangey bastards.’ He looked at Lucy before adding, ‘And clowns.’
A woman’s voice rang out on the verandah. ‘Oooo, Dean! You are a sweetie! I couldn’t have done that without you coming to my rescue.’ A low male voice murmured back. ‘Oh no! I’m sure my little red car would never have made it up that hill without you.’ Tammy heard Trav’s groan. ‘Who the fuck is that?’ Joe yelled towards the outside.
‘Ah, that would be me, Mr McCauley.’ Dean Gibson clumped through the door before holding it open for another person.
‘And me!’ said a voice behind him. Jacinta Greenaway sashayed into the room. She wore a low cut lacy crimson top. A pair of cut-off denim shorts encased her trim bottom. Long tanned legs and bare feet with bright pink toenails finished the Project Barbie look off.
‘Who the fuck are you two? And what the hell are you doing on my hill? In my bloody house?’ thundered the old man. Dean took a step backwards, but Jacinta stood her ground. ‘Hello, Mr McCauley,’ she said sweetly. ‘How do you do? I’m Jacinta Greenaway, but my friends all call me Cin.’ The inference was clear. Joe could be her friend too if he liked. ‘I heard you’d been in the wars, so thought I’d drop over some big, fat chocolate muffins. There’s nothing like chocolate to set those feel-good endorphins loose.’
A big box covered in cellophane appeared on the table, perfect brown muffins dripping with chocolate buttons sitting snug inside.
Tammy watched, incredulous. Old Joe – the abusive, belligerent old codger – became melted butter within seconds. ‘Harrumph.’ The old man cleared his throat. Nice words were obviously sticking in his gullet. He had another go. ‘Well, then . . . thank you.’
‘Oh you’re most welcome, Mr McCauley. It must have been a terrible ordeal for you. Would you tell me all about it? I understand you were extremely brave!’ The girl fluttered her eyelashes at Trav, who was watching the whole show, dumbstruck. Tammy wasn’t sure who Cin thought was ‘extremely brave!’ – Trav or Joe.
Suddenly Trav snapped out of his trance and abruptly gestured at Billy, who jumped from his chair and offered it to Cin.
‘Oooo, Billy! Thank you. How lovely.’ Cin sat down and then pulled the chair closer to Joe, leaning across the table, her full breasts perched within spitting distance of the old bloke’s mouth. Tammy could swear he started to drool. She grinned and met Trav’s eyes across the table. He was smiling too. At her, not Cin. His half-smile. The one that had just recently started turning her stomach inside out.
‘So, Mr McCauley, how did you hurt your hip? Tell me the whole story, right from the start,’ Cin’s voice twittered somewhere to Tammy’s right. A tiny part of her brain was saying she should swing around and talk to Dean Gibson, who still lingered in the kitchen. Be polite. Apologise for her behaviour towards him at the hospital. But her whole being was focused on Travis Hunter and his half-smile. His eyes had darkened from their usual vivid bright blue to the same navy of the mountains before rain. Tammy felt her mouth drop open slightly. Found she was breathing in small gasps. She felt herself leaning towards him. Saw him do the same. Oh good God! He felt it too. This pull, this attraction, this –
‘And so, Tammy, I was just calling by to see if you were free next Friday night. Rob Sellers told me where I could find you.’ Dean’s voice broke into her thoughts. ‘I met Jacinta down near Joe’s gate – she was looking for Travis.’
The spell was broken. Just like that. Tammy pulled herself back from Trav. Disappointed, she turned towards Dean. ‘Huh?’
‘Oh, and I thought I’d check to see how your uncle was too, of course.’
‘Well, as you can see he’s good.’ He was far from good but that answer would do for now while she pulled herself together and got her mind out of Travis Hunter’s pants. Geez! What the hell was she thinking? He was the wild man from the back-of-beyond. And her own husband had only just removed his jocks from her drawer!
‘And so, what about next Friday night? Would you like to come with me? I think the dance starts about eight-thirty. We could do tea beforehand.’
‘Oooo yes, let’s!’ Cin chimed in. She turned to Joe. ‘There’s a dance on, Mr McCauley, to raise money for the ambulance station. A new defibrillator or something.’ Cin clapped her hands together like she’d had some divine inspiration. ‘Travis, let’s all go!’
‘What about me? Can I come?’ This was from Lucy in the corner.
‘Of course you can!’ gushed Cin, swinging round. ‘We’ll find you a date too –’ She stopped and gulped, taking in Lucy and her hair for the first time ‘– somewhere.’
Dates? A dance? Oh good Lord. Tammy glanced across at Trav, who’d gone pale. She was being asked out. By Dean Gibson. ‘Sorry, Dean, need to look after Joe –’
‘Can’t, Cin. No one to look after Billy –’
Jinx again. They both stopped and stared at each other, then looked away.
Lucy was pouting.
‘Well, I think we can sort that one out pretty quick smart,’ said Joe, speaking into the uneasy silence. ‘I’ll look after Billy, and he can look after me.’ He glanced at the boy, who had remained as quiet as a mouse. ‘Right?’
Tammy’s heart went out to the child, whose eyes were now swinging wildly from his father to each grown-up in the room. She could almost see his mind whirring: he and Joe spending some time together alone? The boy looked like a cornered animal. Then Billy stared straight at the old man. ‘Yes, sir.’
‘Yes sir, what?’ Joe was unrelenting.
‘We can look after each other, sir.’
‘Splendid!’ Cin cried, clapping her hands. ‘What fun!’
‘Ripper!’ said Dean. ‘I’ll come out and pick you all up!’
‘Oh, my aunt’s fanny!’ Lucy
was grinning.
‘Just great,’ murmured Tammy.
‘Fuck,’ muttered Trav.
Chapter 21
Tammy stood in the doorway contemplating the gaping bedroom ceiling. Outside, she could hear Travis calling the dogs to their kennels, the faint drone of two vehicles as they made their way down Hope’s Road – Lucy, Dean and Cin were heading home. Crockery was clanking against the sides of the stainless-steel sink in the kitchen as Billy did the dishes. And she assumed Joe was where she’d left him, tucking into his third chocolate muffin. She surveyed the width of the gaps. They’d have to find some planks and do a quick fix.
Tammy moved outside and met Travis coming up the verandah steps. ‘We’re going to have to mend that ceiling otherwise Joe will be swallowing possum or rat poo while he snores.’
Trav nodded. ‘I’ve been for a scout around and found a few spare lining boards up in the roof of the old barn. Want to come give me a hand to slide them out of the rafters?’
Tammy agreed and followed him out towards the sheds. The night was clear and brilliant under a bright fullish moon as she walked in Trav’s footsteps. She couldn’t help but marvel at how good his butt looked in a pair of Wranglers. ‘Enjoying the view?’
Tammy could feel a blush steal up her neck. She looked up but Trav was still walking and waving his big torch out across the mountains, glowing in the moonlight. ‘Looks pretty special, doesn’t it?’
She glanced down again and pursed her lips in thought. Yep, the way the denim cupped his bum cheeks looked mighty fine to her.
Travis suddenly stopped and turned. She ran straight into his broad chest. Her knees went out from under her and his arms came around her slim waist to catch her fall. ‘Geez, Tammy. Get a grip. Those mountains aren’t worth two McCauleys landing on your arses.’
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