by Ford, Holly
‘It’s more than she would have been doing a couple of years ago,’ Benji said. ‘The place was in a hell of a mess for a while. Nate and Tess have really turned it around.’
‘Mitch owns part of it too,’ Lennie felt the need to observe, ‘doesn’t he?’
‘Some sort of share, yeah. But I think he’s more of a silent partner, if you know what I mean.’
Lennie raised her eyebrows.
‘People say Mitch hasn’t been the same since he came out of the air force,’ Benji said. ‘He ended up getting sent to Afghanistan to fly for the RAF.’ He paused. ‘There was talk around for a while that he’d gotten himself into some kind of trouble. But I don’t know. I mean, it’s got to be pretty fucked up over there at the best of times, right?’
Lennie said nothing, unsure why having this conversation felt so wrong.
‘Nobody even knew he was back in the district,’ Benji went on, ‘until he bowled into the Brownhills pub with Nate one night. Turned out he’d been holed up on the station for months. He hardly used to set foot off the place.’
‘He seems to be getting out and about alright now,’ she said firmly.
‘Yeah,’ Benji said. ‘Yeah, he does. And good for him, right?’ Thoughtfully, he finished the dregs of his beer. ‘I guess none of us really know how we’d go in a situation like that.’
‘No,’ Lennie said. ‘No, we don’t.’
‘They say all the training in the world can’t prepare you for the real thing.’ He eyed her empty glass. ‘You want another drink?’
‘Sure.’ The back of Lennie’s neck was still tingling. ‘I’ll get them.’
She picked her way through the empty tables towards the open door. Despite the gorgeous afternoon, Mitch and Nate hadn’t come back outside. As her eyes adjusted to the dimmer light of the bar’s interior, Lennie tried to look nonchalant. She was just getting a drink, that was all. Peripheral vision alive for a particular set of shoulders, she headed for the counter. She could have saved the performance. He wasn’t inside, either. She’d been imagining things. Mitch hadn’t been looking at her at all.
As the barman rifled the chiller cabinet for a new bottle of wine, Lennie noticed another open door to her left, a slight breeze and a woman’s voice drifting through it. There was another terrace out the back, next to the parking lot. And on it was the shape she’d been expecting to see. Mitch was facing away from her, still listening to his bank manager chat. Lennie didn’t know why, but she thought he looked uneasy.
‘Hey.’ Appearing out of god-knew-where, Nate leaned on the counter beside her, one eye on the barman, who was making a meal out of pouring Benji’s beer. ‘Hanging out with the opposition, huh?’
Nate’s smile still seemed a little off.
It took Lennie a moment to work out what he meant. ‘Who, VETSouth?’ Reading the expression on his face, she took a guess. ‘What, they’ve been pitching for your business?’ ‘They can offer us a suite of services.’ Nate’s voice was dry. ‘You’re not tempted?’
‘You know how it is.’ He shrugged. ‘You get a new suite, next thing you know you’re redecorating the farm.’
Lennie smiled.
‘We’re pretty comfortable with Jim,’ Nate said. ‘He knows our genetics better than I do.’
Outside, something caught Mitch’s attention. Lennie got a glimpse of his profile, a flash of those dark eyes, as he shifted in his chair. But he still wasn’t looking at her.
‘Mitch likes you,’ Nate said quietly. ‘You know that, right?’
Oh boy…this was going to be an awkward conversation to have. ‘Yeah?’ She tried to laugh it off. ‘How can you tell?’
Nate sighed. ‘It takes a bit of practice.’
‘I guess you’ve seen it all before.’
‘No,’ he said, serious all of a sudden. ‘That’s the thing. I haven’t seen it before. Not like this.’
Her desire to believe him was so physical it almost made her flinch. Lennie backed away from it fast. This was no game for a grown-up to be playing. Nate didn’t have all the facts. Or maybe he did, and he was seeing what he wanted to see—his best mate taking an interest in a new woman, a woman who wasn’t Tess, wasn’t whatever complication had driven Mitch out of a unit in the Glenmore Hotel…
‘Here we go.’ The barman set the drinks on the counter. ‘You guys are running a tab out there, right?’
‘Yeah, thanks.’ Picking the glasses up, Lennie smiled quickly at Nate. ‘Well, I guess I’d better get going with these.’
‘Sure.’ Nate wasn’t smiling at all now. ‘See you later.’
‘Yeah.’ Her voice sounded overly bright in her own ears. ‘See you around.’ Downing a mouthful of chardonnay to facilitate her escape, she made a bolt for the front door.
‘What did Nate have to say for himself in there?’ Benji asked nonchalantly, as she settled into her chair.
‘He was just checking up on the Brucella ovis results,’ Lennie said. ‘We haven’t got them back yet.’
Benji’s arm was draped over the back of the empty seat beside him, the slightest hint of a jut to that golden jaw of his. He reminded her of an alpha dog who’d just got a glimpse of another across the park. Was he jealous? Of what? Broken Creek’s business? Or her attention? For the first time it struck Lennie that, growing up, Benji Cooper hadn’t had a lot in the way of competition. Nate and Mitch were about the same age as him, she guessed, but they couldn’t have gone to Kimpton District High. If they had, she would have noticed.
‘Nate and Mitch didn’t go to school around here,’ she said casually.
Benji shook his head. ‘Broken Creek’s a bit off the bus route. They went to boarding school up in Christchurch.’
‘Both of them? The same school?’
‘Yeah,’ Benji said. ‘Those guys have been tight forever. Opposites attract, I guess. Nate always did most of Mitch’s talking.’
Lennie looked at him in surprise. ‘You knew them back then?’
‘A bit. I’d see them around sometimes. Club cricket, mostly.’ He rubbed his jaw thoughtfully. ‘Mitch used to be pretty quick with the ball.’
Lennie paused, not wanting to seem too interested. ‘How long have Nate and Tess been together?’
Benji thought about it. ‘A bit over a year or so, I guess. They hooked up after Tess came in to manage Broken Creek. She’s the brains behind the operation, that’s for sure.’
‘What about Mitch?’ she said casually. ‘Does he have a wife? A partner?’
‘Mitch? God, no. Can’t say I’ve ever seen him with anyone.’ Benji gave her a complicitous look. ‘I mean, you’ve met the guy, right? I think it’s pretty safe to say that Mitch Stuart is one of life’s loners.’
Benji sat forward again. Lennie sipped her wine, only half listening to the funny story he’d begun about some guy from school she didn’t remember.
Mitch likes you. You know that, right?
Well, maybe he did. But not enough to keep him in her room that night. Lennie took another, larger, mouthful of wine. Not enough to make him pull free from whatever was holding him back.
By the time her glass was empty again, the sun had gone from the terrace. Lennie checked her watch. It was nearly five o’clock. ‘I’d better get going,’ she realised. ‘I have to pick up Pesh.’
Benji frowned.
‘My dog,’ Lennie explained. ‘I left her at the clinic.’
‘I guess I should go too.’ He pushed back his chair.
In the car park, they paused beside Lennie’s ute.
‘That was fun,’ Benji said. ‘We should do it again.’
‘Sure.’ Lennie rummaged out her keys. ‘You know where to find me.’
‘Maybe grab something to eat next time.’
Omigod, omigod…Had Benji Cooper just asked her out? ‘Yeah,’ Lennie said cautiously. ‘That would be nice.’
‘It’s really good to see you.’ Benji opened his arms.
‘You too.’ Lennie leaned in, offering her cheek in the
general direction of his. To her surprise, it actually met flesh. Had he meant to do that? As his arms closed around her, she felt the fizz of a thousand teenage dreams coming true. Briefly, Benji’s lips touched her skin. Maybe it had been an accident, but she so owed her fifteen-year-old self this moment…Lennie kissed his cheek in return. The scruff of blond stubble against her lips was almost as shocking as the flex of his biceps under her hands. This was Benji Cooper she was touching. Benji Cooper. After all these years…
‘I’ll call you,’ he said, his mouth next to her ear.
Lennie stepped back. ‘Okay.’
He was giving her that vintage Benji look, the one that never failed to knock sixty points off her IQ. What the hell did it mean? Had that just been a friendly hug? Or did he—?
Lennie stopped herself. Bloody hell. Was she back here already? Agonising over what Benji Cooper meant? She turned to the ute.
‘See you later.’ As she glanced back, her hand on the door, the enigmatic smile she’d hoped to give Benji faltered. Ten metres behind him, through a gap in the garden wall, Mitch sat watching them from his table. For a second, Lennie met his eyes. She felt an odd weight on her sternum as he dropped his head and looked away.
Nine
Barbara pushed open the recovery room door, the clinic’s cordless phone pressed to her shoulder. ‘I’ve got Tess Drummond from Broken Creek on the line,’ she told Lennie. ‘She’s asking if the Brucella ovis results have come back.’
‘Thanks Barb. I’ll take it.’ Lennie held out her hand for the phone. ‘Tess, hi. Yeah, we just got the results through this morning. All negative. Your boys are clear for duty.’
‘That’s great to hear,’ Tess said. ‘Okay. Thanks.’
‘Hey, um,’ Lennie found herself beginning, wading into a conversation she hadn’t realised she’d decided to have, ‘while I’ve got you on the phone…I was talking to Mitch the other day about how I hadn’t been up Broken Creek River in like, forever, and he said it’d be okay for me to drive in sometime.’
‘Sure,’ Tess said. Lennie thought her tone was a little odd—then again, she was asking for permission to drive up a public road.
‘The thing is, Mitch said you wouldn’t mind if I brought my dog with me,’ Lennie explained. It was a generous enough offer to need to confirm. Not many sheep stations would let a strange dog on the place. ‘She’s on a worming programme and everything.’
‘Yeah, I imagine she would be.’ Tess was sounding unmistakeably amused now. ‘That’s fine, you can bring your dog.’ She paused. ‘How far up the road were you thinking of coming?’
‘Oh,’ Lennie hedged, ‘I don’t know. I guess I’ll see how I go.’
‘You should call in and say hi,’ Tess said. ‘You know, if you make it this far. Stop in for a coffee if you have time.’
‘Thanks.’ Oh god, maybe this was a bad idea after all. ‘Yeah, I…I was thinking I’d probably just stop at the river. You know, where the anglers’ access is. If that’s still there, I mean.’ Lennie shook her head at herself. ‘Like I said, I haven’t been up there for a while.’
‘It’s still there.’ Tess paused. ‘What day did you say you were coming?’
Lennie frowned. She hadn’t, had she? ‘Maybe this Saturday?’ she suggested hesitantly.
‘There’s probably going to be stock on the river,’ Tess said. ‘But there’s a good track off the road to the left when you first come down the hill. You’ll see the gate. If you want to take your dog for a decent run, you’d be better heading up there. That block should be all clear.’
‘Okay,’ Lennie said, recognising an order when she heard one. ‘Thanks, that’d be great. I will.’
•
On Saturday morning, Lennie sat in the ute, her hand on the ignition, debating whether or not to ask herself what the hell she was doing. Had she really not thought better of this? She knew that if she stopped to examine her excuse that she’d made an arrangement with Tess, she’d find it leaking like a sieve.
She’d half-hoped that the weather might take matters out of her hands, but the sky above the distant mountains was cloudless, the morning shaping into one of those perfect, crystal-clear autumn days that, if Lennie didn’t get on with it soon, would be too hot to walk Pesh by the time she got to Broken Creek anyway. For god’s sake, was she going or not?
Lennie turned the key in the ignition. This wasn’t about seeing Mitch. It didn’t have to be, anyway. She was taking her dog for a walk, that was all. People drove two hours to do that. People in Sydney did, anyway…
Okay, so she just felt like going for a drive today. That was perfectly valid. An overdue trip down a very long, very rugged memory lane. In the rear-view mirror, Pesh’s eyes met hers. Hurry up, Pesh’s said.
‘Alright.’ Lennie breathed out. ‘Alright, we’re going.’
At the end of Chalfont Road, Pesh stood up in surprise as Lennie turned right, in the opposite direction to Kimpton. Soon they were driving over the all-but-dry braids of the river on the poetically named Kimpton No.2, the wide concrete bridge that had replaced the clanking wooden one-laner Lennie remembered as a child. Crossing the valley’s main highway a few kilometres further on, she felt the same surge of excitement she’d always felt to be on the road into the mountains.
Half an hour later, a much longer, older one-lane bridge took them over the Hyde just below its hectic confluence with Broken Creek River and onto the feet of the ranges that massed towards the Main Divide. As the narrow road rose and fell, twisting south to the tiny settlement of Brownhills, the busy river at its side, Lennie smiled at the sight of a new sign fixed to the rocks. Brownhills’ famously ugly pub was a backpackers now? Only 26kms to the best coffee this side of the Hyde, she read. Free wi-fi & campervan parking. Back in the day, it had been ‘the world’s smallest fly-fishing museum’ that was supposed to draw people in. Lennie suspected that campervan parking and wi-fi might be more successful.
Four hundred metres before the as-yet-invisible Brownhills Tavern, Lennie slowed, looking out for the turn-off to Broken Creek Road, the yellow signpost she remembered so well. There it was. Pesh leapt up again as Lennie made the turn, the wheels of the ute crunching onto gravel. As the track climbed, beginning its seventeen-kilometre journey west, Lennie opened the windows, letting in the sound of the side-creek below hurtling down to meet the Hyde and the fresh air of an increasingly lovely day.
The first part of the access road was steep and narrow enough to put off most two-wheel drives not already deterred by the hand-painted No Exit sign. But Lennie, along with most of the Kimpton Valley, knew that once she’d ground and juddered her way up what remained of this section’s shingle, the track opened out into the wide tussock-lands of the Broken Creek saddle—the sort of place the Brownhills Tavern’s campervanners would give their eyeteeth to reach if only they could.
The first time Jim and Lois had brought her up here, she’d been so carsick they’d had to pull over at the top. But Lennie had got used to rough roads as fast as she’d gotten used to everything about life with her grandparents, and by their second fly-fishing ‘safari’, she was loving the drive as much as they did.
Pesh had her head out the window, and Lennie felt like doing the same. Even now, after a long hot summer and before the first snows, there was a breath of ice on the breeze running down from the peaks above. Apart from the noise of the ute and the odd distant bleat from an unseen sheep, the silence around them was as big as the sky.
‘Remind you of anything?’ she asked Pesh. ‘It’s like being back in your home town, huh?’ Lennie smiled. ‘No wolves here, though.’ No villages, either. Or phone booths, or cafés.
It was funny, but this road had always seemed such an adventure in itself that she’d never thought too much about what lay at its end. That there might be houses, families, two boys her own age. Lennie tried to picture Nate and Mitch back then. Nate was easy. But Mitch…Mitch she couldn’t imagine at all, and the thought returned that weight to her chest. As if
whoever he’d been back then had been completely erased.
Lennie straightened in the driver’s seat as the road approached the edge of the saddle, eager for the sight of the Broken Creek Valley below. Looking down on it, she shook her head. God. She could actually see the homestead from here, not to mention the woolshed. So much for her memory.
As she began the descent, Lennie’s nerves began to churn along with the gravel under her wheels. She was heading deep into Mitch’s territory now, winding her way down into all the things he didn’t want to explain. He invited you, Lennie reminded herself. He’d said she was welcome. But…how far had he meant for her to go?
She navigated the final series of hairpin bends, her courage losing traction. She’d never driven the road in its entirety. And maybe she wouldn’t today. Maybe she’d just walk Pesh and go home. Have a coffee in the Brownhills pub. Check her email. See if Benji had called.
Reaching the valley floor, she saw the gate Tess had described. It was open. And the farm track on the other side did look like a great walk—a wide, gently sloping climb back into the tumble of hills she’d just descended. Lennie pulled up beside it. This was far enough.
As she opened the door, Pesh bounded out of the ute, an Is this for real? expression on her face.
‘Go on,’ Lennie told her, stuffing the lead into her pocket. ‘You can go. It’s all good.’
As Pesh loped ahead, Lennie followed at a more leisurely pace, taking in the country around her. The shadows of a few scattered clouds had begun to move over the empty slopes, but the sun was still warm, a little heat haze shimmering over the tussock. To the right of the track, a small creek cut a deep gash in the brown grass and the air was still enough to hear the trickle of unseen water. Lennie stopped. She could make out what sounded like a quad bike, too, the distant grumble of a four-stroke engine bouncing around the hills. Unable to see anything, she shrugged and walked on. It could be coming from anywhere. Pesh, who had paused at the first bend to wait for her, moved on as well, her thick white coat waving in the breeze.
The climb was subtle, but steady. Occasionally, cresting a rise, Lennie could catch the silver glint of the creek as it looped through rougher country. Half an hour in, she looked back, trying to reckon how high they were, but the road was out of sight. When she turned around again, Pesh was gone.