by C. J. Duggan
Cream was bullshit, and with that in mind, I chose to stand.
The white mantel was aligned with matching silver frames of alternative patterns and sizes; I lazily cast my eyes over them, staring from the left and walking to the other end, slowly taking in the mostly unknown faces.
I spotted a pimply-faced Max first, looking miserable and pubescent in his grammar school burgundy jacket and tie. I smirked to myself; of course they would have been privately educated. Next to Max’s frame was that of a beaming girl with black hair and a smile full of metal; she looked about thirteen. She also wore some kind of hideous uniform. I shook my head.
Poor kids.
I glanced towards the kitchen where a weary-looking Steve was rubbing his eyes and nodding on the phone. For me, right then, he was the classic poster child for all the reasons why you would never dedicate yourself to one person. Get hitched, pump out a couple of kids and live mundanely ever after.
No thanks.
I sighed, thinking I would make my own way to the out buildings, check out the shearers’ huts for myself. God only knew how long Steve’s ear was going to be chewed off by his Mrs. Speaking of.
Hello.
My eyes rested on a wedding picture of a much-younger-looking Steve Henry. Decked out in a hideous-looking 70s-style suit, with criminally large lapels and flares that looked like he might have been whisked away like an unattached jumping castle should a gust of wind catch them. I grimaced.
The young Steve had his blond curls plastered down in a ridiculous side parting as he adoringly looked down at his not-too-ridiculous-looking wife. Sure, she looked like a giant meringue in that dress, but there was no denying it. Mrs Henry was a bit of a fox. Jet-black hair cut into a bob, she too looked adoringly up at her husband. I almost allowed myself to be lost in a romantic sense of nostalgia. Almost.
I shook my head, tearing my eyes away to move on to the next frame and paused.
This time is wasn’t a picture of some miserable-looking private school kid, or some dated olden-day photo with questionable fashion. Instead it was a picture of a girl. It was different from the others; her smile was bright and authentic, her blonde hair captured in the moment as if blowing in a breeze. She looked carefree, happy, exotic. And it wasn’t just the fact she was taking some kind of awkwardly angled selfie next to the unmistakable Eiffel tower, she was exotic in another way I couldn’t wholly describe. Her eyes were shielded by sunglasses, and annoyance flashed in my mind of how it spoilt the image of the girl. I very much wanted to see what those eyes looked like; my eyes darted along the mantel, searching amongst the frames. Searching for a pair of eyes. And then I found them. But they weren’t the light, smiling eyes I had expected; instead, they were sad, and humourless. A girl once again sitting in a stiff school uniform, her blue-green eyes haunted by something. I looked once more amongst the frames, but aside from the odd child or baby photo I couldn’t see any other image with those eyes: eyes I had wanted to see in any other way but sad. They were far too pretty for that. Against my own understanding, I picked up the Paris frame and looked at it more closely; her smile was framed by brilliant white, perfect teeth, her cheeks flushed from excitement.
The corner of my mouth creased; well, well, well … who knew Max Henry had a hot sister. I shook my head, thinking to quickly place the frame back on the mantel before Steve Henry caught me perving on his daughter. Just in the nick of time I heard the phone slam down, followed by a deep sigh, before Steve appeared in the large arch between the kitchen and the lounge.
He shook his head. “Women.”
I smiled with good humour.
My thoughts exactly.
“Everything all right?” I asked.
Steve crossed his arms and leant against the arch.
“Penny is in town with our youngest, Moira; some formal dress they’re on the hunt for, for some ridiculous town hall disco. They actually asked me if they should go with silk or satin?” He laughed incredulously. “How the bloody hell should I know between silk or bloody satin? All I know is wool, and when I suggested how about Nana Henry knit Moira a formal dress, well, that went down like a bloody lead balloon, as you could imagine.”
I couldn’t help but laugh. “Shame, nothing says disco like a knitted evening gown.”
“Yeah, well, my next line of thought was for her to accessorise it with a bloody chastity belt, but thought against getting myself into more trouble than a rat with a gold tooth.”
Our laughter echoed through the room in our bonded moment of man talk. Steve caught his breath from laughing at his own joke; he cocked his head as if listening to something in the distance. My own laughs died and I fell silent. My humour faded; instead, I watched Steve intently for a long moment. It was like he was frozen in time. I was about to voice my concern when his serious face slowly broke into a brilliant smile.
“Here she is.” He smiled.
My brows lowered, thinking that he had maybe completely lost the plot; I went to ask what he was talking about before pausing. That’s when I heard it: the distant, yet familiar hums of a struggling motor, a sound that caused the hairs on the back of my neck to stand on end, and my pulse to quicken as a familiar rage bubbled in me.
No. Fucking. Way.
He gave a wide grin. “My little girl’s home.” He quickly stepped towards the wire door, before turning to me. “Come on, come meet my daughter, Miranda.” He beamed.
A sense of dread filled me as I cast a fleeting glance back to the mantle and then moved to follow Steve. My expression grave as I neared the kitchen door, the unmistakable, and all too recognisable sound became louder. It was the equivalent of running your nails down a chalkboard. And sure enough, I had lost all interest in Steve’s cheery demeanour as I stood next to him on the verandah. Instead, I stood in stark contrast to his animated waves and smiles as the daughter of the devil made a wide, semicircular sweep in the drive, in none other than a white hatchback Mazda.
Well … this is fucked.
I glared down from the verandah, maintaining my stoic stance as Steve descended the steps two at a time, eager to greet his charming little cherub. There was little doubt in my mind what the hell child from behind the wheel would look like, and sure enough, as the door swung open in a pained screech, a blonde head poked out and the Parisian goddess on the mantel slid out from her car.
Oh for fuck’s sake.
Tall, slender, and dressed in a way that definitely screamed European, her black ankle boots and black skin-tight jeans accentuated the length of her long legs and the perfect curve of her slender, womanly figure. All would be distracting, but none more so than the sunglasses that framed her face, shielding those mysterious eyes like they did in that photo. I then reminded myself that I really couldn’t give a shit what her eyes looked like. The black widow herself had almost killed me merely an hour before. The fact she was wearing a light gloss on her bow-shaped lips, or the shine of her hair as the sun hit it at the right angle, or the way she moved to open the back passenger door with grace in such a short distance … no, I wouldn’t let any of that distract me, not for a second.
If she had seen me standing on the verandah she paid me no notice as she reached into the back seat and retrieved a bag.
“Hello, luv.” Steve was by her side, all smiles and open arms; the father-and-daughter reunion was destined to be a real tear jerker until Daddy’s little girl thrust her bag into Steve’s chest with an oomph.
His brows rose. “Rough trip?” he asked, repeating the exact same words he had said to me; this time, he clamped down his humour as if not wanting to poke the bear. And he was right, because even with sunglasses on, no one would have to guess too hard that there was a glacial stare behind the dark shades.
Without a word she shouldered her other bag and slammed the door.
Yep! A real piece of work.
Cyclone Miranda was now headed in my direction; now, more than ever, I wanted her glasses to be gone so I could see the look in her eyes. I ba
cked my way towards the screen door and waited. Her expensive European heels clicked up the steps, her blonde hair partially framed her face. She looked exhausted, as if she was carrying the weight of the world on her shoulders. Poor little rich girl had no porter to carry her designer bags for her. I smiled against my better judgement and, instead, had great pleasure in reaching and opening the door for her.
“Seems like I am always opening things for you, Miss Henry,” I said, with a crooked tilt to my mouth. I expected her to blanch, to look at me with a double take and some ounce of recognition—something, anything. Instead, she strode a defiant, determined line and without missing a beat, she said, “Oh, fuck off,” walking straight through the opened door and leaving her dad and me in stunned silence.
A real piece of work.
Chapter Six
Miranda
“I don’t give a damn, young lady. You check that behaviour and leave that attitude at the door, do you hear me?”
My dad was pissed, clearly. Gone were the warm, welcome smiles and niceties from mere moments before. Instead, a raging bear had come bursting into my room, his face so red, a vein pulsing in his neck; I thought he was about to burst a blood vessel. I had sat on my old bed, taken my shades off and rubbed at my fatigued eyes, zoning in and out of his rant-like speech but listening enough to take in words like ‘ashamed’, ‘disgusted’ and ‘embarrassed’. All the strong ones. I hadn’t the energy to argue, to say sorry, because I wasn’t sure that I really was. Well, maybe taking my anger out on ‘gate boy’ was not really fair, nor had been nearly running him over in the first place; still, the moment I drove into the drive and spotted his yellow Ford, I knew for certain that this was the person Dad had hired to take Max’s place. I felt my stomach twist at the memory of his hand pounding on my back window as he yelled obscenities at me. I had stopped because I had seen him come off the gate hard, and momentarily winded. I had had every intention of asking if he was okay, but as soon as he started mouthing off at me, the monster caged inside me reared its ugly head and instead I flipped him off and left him behind in a trail of dust, relishing the thought that I had the last say, or action anyway. A brave move surely, until I had come to the realisation that I was about to be face to face with him. My heart had pounded as I rolled into the drive. Maybe I would just apologise and explain that I was just having a life crisis with coming back to Ballan to do my daughterly duty. At the end of the day, I really should be thanking him. After all, he was going to be looking after Moira, meaning I wouldn’t have to. I could probably just visit for a little while and be free again, as long as my parents didn’t want to investigate what I wanted to do for the rest of my life now that I was home from Paris. To be honest, I really had no idea myself, and, try as I might, I was not becoming a farmer’s wife. No way.
So sure, I would extend a peace offering of sorts to yellow Ford driver, and I had completely intended to, until I came to a halt out the front of the homestead and saw him standing there on the verandah looking mad as hell next to Dad. His arms crossed across his chest, glaring down at me.
Fuck!
Okay, so I had clearly not thought any of it through. I hadn’t meant to be so hostile towards Dad; if anything, I wished I could rewind the moment and just have hugged him and said it was good to be home like any good daughter would, instead of stomping my way and telling a stranger where to go. So I took the lecture—took it with every hollered shout from my dad—as it really was a sign of being home. The amount of times I had been lectured as I sat on my bed was too numerous to count, but unlike all those times, I responded in a way that really did silence my dad.
“I’m sorry,” I whispered, looking down at my hands. I felt like a child, not like some woman of the world I thought I was. Maybe it was the bone-jarring fatigue that had stripped away all my bravado, or the fact that I had never seen my dad this angry before, not even when I was caught underage drinking at Tyler Mackie’s. No, not even then.
He was silent now. I didn’t look up to see if his demeanour had softened, or if his face was still scarlet with fury; instead, a long silence settled in the room and just as I hoped he would finally speak, he did.
“Not good enough,” he said, before turning to make his way out of my room and slamming the door behind him.
Right then, I really wished he hadn’t spoken at all.
***
The room I once dreaded returning to now had turned into my sanctuary. A safe haven from broody fathers and offended farmhands. It served me well for the first hour as I busied myself by unpacking my bags, then heading to my en suite for a shower, slipping into something more comfortable, and crashing onto my bed before falling into a deep, much-needed sleep.
Hours later, as the simmering summer sun dipped from the sky, it wasn’t the much-welcomed dip in the temperature gauge that stirred me from my slumber; instead, it was the feeling of my head slamming into the bedhead as a heavy, bony-weight body slammed me out of my sleep.
“Wake up! Wake up! Wake up!” the voice screamed, as my mattress bounced to the beat of the sing-songed chants.
“Ugh, get off, Moira,” I said, feeling my palm on a face and pushing; it did little to stop her bony knees in my rib cage.
“Sacre-bleu,” she exclaimed. Always with the French words.
I blindly fumbled with the side table, awkwardly feeling for the lamp switch. I squinted at the offending beam, blinking as my eyes adjusted; it didn’t help that Moira lay a mere inches away from me, her head resting on her hand, smiling her metal-mouthed smile, her eyes sparkling with glee. My icy façade thawed seeing my little sister, seeing that look of happiness on her face, expecting her to voice how much she had missed her big sis’.
“Oh my gosh, Miranda. Have you seen the hottie Dad hired? Hubba-hubba,” she said, wiggling her brows.
The smile slipped from my face—my adorable boy-crazy little sister: some things never changed.
I pulled the blanket up to my chin. “He’s not that hot,” I scoffed.
Moira sat bolt upright. “Are you serious? You don’t think Ringer is smoking hot?”
My head snapped around to frown at Moira. “Ringer?”
“Yeah, that’s his name, how cool is that?” she said with intense enthusiasm.
“What a ridiculous name.”
Moira sighed, hugging one of my pillows. “I think it’s awesome.” Her eyes had glassed over with gooey affection; it was the same moony expression each time Bluey brought the shearers out to Moira in shearing season. She was so embarrassing; the day they had shipped her off to an all-girls’ boarding school couldn’t have happened soon enough.
Moira snapped out of her daydreaming and shifted herself into a cross-legged position. “So, what did you bring me back from Paris?”
“Nothing.” I yawned.
“Yeah, right,” she said, playfully nudging my shoulder.
“It’s true; what could I possibly get a girl who has it all?” I mocked seriousness, causing Moira to pummel me some more; the only protection was the doona I laughed and hid under. The squeals and squeaks of the bed mattress soon came to an abrupt halt at the sound of a cough from the doorway.
I slowly peeled the cover over my head, wiping the wisps of hair from my face; I instinctively knew who that sound belonged to.
My mother.
And, unlike my dad, she was less than thrilled to see me.
Chapter Seven
Ringer
Dusk settled into night and I found myself languishing in the peace and coolness of the evening.
Rocking on the back legs of the chair in front of the shearers’ huts, I had wasted little time relocating myself to the out building. No matter how big the house was, it was never going to be big enough for Miranda Henry and me. The wench should have come with a warning label.
I blew on my cup of tea before shaking my head and taking a sip.
Tea.
I had to laugh: hours from home in a simple shearers’ quarters drinking tea, alone,
on a Saturday night.
What the fuck was I doing with my life?
The sleeping quarters were pretty good, actually: a long line of individual rooms that led onto their individual decked verandah. It wasn’t far from the main house, the view offering the comings and goings of the Henry household. Including what I assumed was the mother and youngest daughter. Moira, was it? Returning home in their flash Land Cruiser after a day in the big smoke. I had hoped that the shadows might have concealed me, but Moira leapt from the passenger seat, fixing her eyes straight on me. I offered a casual wave that caused her to smile as she turned and skipped into the house with a heap of bags swinging from her arms.