by Ford, Holly
Shit. Lennie stared at the wide, open space ahead. How was that possible? Where the hell had Pesh vanished to? As Lennie gathered her wits to call her dog, she heard the single, peremptory bark that indicated Pesh had found something Lennie should look at. Following the sound, Lennie scrambled down the dip to the creek bed.
Sitting proudly at the edge of the water was Pesh. And staring across it at the dog from the other side was Mitch. Minus a shirt, he was balanced on the tray of a quad bike, a post shovel in one gloved hand. Above him jutted an iron fence post that, seemingly, he’d been trying to pry from the washed-out bank.
‘Hey,’ Lennie said. For a second, she couldn’t think of anything more above the blood thumping in her ears, her reasons for being in the middle of his farm seeming suddenly about as substantial as the wisps of wool clinging to the rusted wire above Mitch’s head.
The last time she’d seen him, he’d been ill-at-ease on the back terrace of The Hard Yard and she’d had her arms full of Benji Cooper. Here, deep in his home turf, Mitch looked relaxed, the only thing tightening his bare shoulders a hard morning’s work.
Lennie made an effort to keep her eyes on his face. For body condition, she’d have to score him an ideal 4.5. Athletic-trim. Muscle well-defined. There was a gloss of sweat on his tanned skin, and on top of the bank behind him she could see a new row of posts waiting to be wired.
‘Sorry,’ she managed at last. ‘I hope Pesh didn’t give you a fright.’
‘I thought I was seeing things for a minute there.’ Mitch sounded amused. ‘What’s that movie? The one where the sheep grow fangs?’
Lennie smiled. ‘I talked to Tess a couple of days ago,’ she felt the need to explain. ‘About bringing Pesh up for a walk. She said we should come up here today.’
‘Up here,’ Mitch repeated. ‘Today.’
‘Tess said there was no stock on this block.’
Mitch looked at the dog. ‘She’s not good with stock?’
‘No,’ Lennie said, ‘she is. She’s really good, actually.’
In the slight pause that followed, it dawned on her that she and Mitch had been set up. As he jumped down from the bike and crossed the shallow water towards her, Lennie did her best to bury the memory of his breath on her cheek.
‘Excuse me,’ Mitch said to Pesh, who, Lennie realised, was sitting on top of his shirt. ‘Do you mind?’
Pesh got up and trotted across the creek to sniff the bike with regal interest.
‘Sorry about that,’ Lennie said.
‘That’s okay.’ Shaking out his shirt, Mitch hesitated.
‘We should get out of your way.’ She looked away as he sank to his haunches, splashing the sweat from his body before he pulled the shirt on. ‘I don’t want to hold you up.’
‘You’re not.’ Mitch straightened. ‘I was just about to take a break.’ He gave her a dark little hint of a smile. ‘You want to grab a drink?’
•
Sitting on a rock sipping ice-cold creek water out of a battered plastic cup, Lennie listened to the sound of the hills as it wrapped around them, the wash of the breeze in the grass, of water over stone. She glanced at Pesh, who had taken up sentry duty at the top of the overhanging bank, the dog’s coat almost blindingly white against the burnt gold of the hills and the deep blue sky. Mitch, she saw, was watching Pesh too.
Lennie studied his profile, wondering what was going through his head and what the chances were that he might be preparing to share it with her. It was surprisingly easy sitting there in silence with him. Something about the scale of the place, the vast spread of the sky, seemed to wipe the need for small talk.
‘You said you found her.’ Mitch’s eyes were still on Pesh.
Lennie nodded. ‘In Abruzzo, yeah. She was hanging around the car park of the hotel I was staying at. She and her mum and a couple of brothers.’
‘Somebody left them there?’
‘Maybe. Maybe they made their own way there, I don’t know.’ She took another sip of water. It tasted very faintly of wet stone. ‘Some of the farmers—the old guys, you know?—instead of putting down working dogs they don’t need, they’ll drop them outside a town, somewhere the dog can’t find its way back to the herd. The dogs have spent most of their lives alone anyway, and I guess the farmers figure the people in town will feed them. And they do.’ Lennie sighed. ‘But of course, none of the dogs are neutered, and the next thing you know…’ She raised her cup at Pesh.
‘How old was she?’
‘About sixteen weeks, I’d guess, when I first saw her. I was there for three months, so we got to be pretty good mates.’
‘So you just decided to adopt her?’
‘Actually, it was kind of the other way round. I went out to feed them one day, and Pesh was the only one there. I never saw the others again.’ Lennie gave Pesh a rueful smile. ‘I couldn’t just leave her there by herself.’
Mitch was silent. Heaving herself up, Pesh ambled down the bank to join them. To Lennie’s surprise, she settled against Mitch’s thigh. Slowly, he rubbed the dog’s head.
‘Emily,’ he said.
Lennie’s pulse thudded. She shouldn’t have the faintest idea what he was talking about. But somehow, she did.
‘My friend in Afghanistan,’ Mitch said. ‘The one who used to feed the dog. Her name was Emily.’
Lennie nodded, giving him space.
‘She found him hanging around the FOB she was on.’ Mitch caught Lennie’s blank look. ‘Forward Operating Base,’ he explained. ‘Ems and a few of the other guys there started making friends with him. They called him Chase after this sergeant who’d just gone home at the end of his tour. Good for barking and not much else.’
Lennie smiled.
‘Ems went totally nuts about Chase,’ he continued, after some more silence had passed. ‘Spent every minute with him she could. I heard about one time the mail turned up, and she got this care package from her mum…Everybody else was getting things like toiletries, baking, you know? Ems had asked for liver treats and a worm pill.’
Lennie nodded again, liking the sound of Emily.
‘I guess I didn’t really get it at first,’ Mitch said, watching Pesh as he pushed his hand through her fur. ‘I told her she wasn’t doing a dog like that any favours teaching him to trust humans. I thought it was stupid to get attached.’ He paused. ‘I was probably a bit jealous, to be honest.’
She watched his face, wondering if he was going to continue.
‘Ems used to say that feeding Chase was one decent thing she could do every day.’ Pesh, below Mitch’s hand, let out a sigh of contentment. ‘She was in Intelligence,’ he said. ‘She saw some things.’
So had he, Lennie guessed.
Mitch shrugged, dismissing her unvoiced sympathy. ‘The business end of a Chinook is a world of its own. I had it easy.’ He thought for a while. ‘She taught Chase to fetch. Can you believe it?’
‘He was probably pretty hungry.’
‘I told her one day he’d bring her back a grenade.’ Mitch shook his head. ‘I still don’t really know how it happened, but she talked me into looking the other way while she and the guys smuggled Chase back to camp in a box in the back of the heli. They thought they could hide him until they finished their tour. God knows how. But Ems had this crazy idea she was going to take Chase home.’ He took a breath. ‘Ems was a lot like Tess. Neither of them take no for an answer.’
Lennie waited, sensing a corner-piece of the puzzle that was Mitch might be about to snap into place.
‘I mean,’ he said, ‘even if Ems could have got Chase out of Afghanistan, what the hell were we going to do with a dog? It’s not like he could hang around the compound at Odiham.’
Lennie blinked. We?
‘We’d talked about getting a place together when we got out,’ Mitch said, in response to the look on her face. ‘I was going to apply for a permanent transfer. Stay with the RAF.’ He turned his attention back to Pesh.
‘What happened?’ Lennie a
sked softly.
‘Ems was killed,’ he said. ‘And I didn’t finish my tour.’
Jesus. Lennie had no idea where to look. What to say. There was nothing to say, no response she could make that was going to cut it. Watching her dog lean against Mitch, Lennie wished she could do what Pesh was doing and just be there. Just be quiet and close.
‘I have no idea what happened to Chase,’ Mitch said, after a while. Pesh was looking up at him, her brown eyes full of worry. ‘I should have thought about him.’
Lennie racked her brain for a decent response. ‘You probably had a lot of things to think about right then.’
‘Ems would have been so pissed off,’ he said. ‘I promised her I’d look out for him while she was away.’
He’d stopped talking, but for some reason she felt like Mitch still had something to say. Carefully, Lennie reached for what she hoped was the right question. ‘How did Emily die?’
‘She got volunteered to go out to a village where the Taliban had been holed up for a while. They thought some women there had intel, but of course the guys couldn’t interview them. It was up on this goat track through the mountains, no road. I dropped Ems in with the patrol.’
Oh shit.
‘I don’t know if the whole thing was a set-up, but the Taliban picked them up pretty much straight away. I hadn’t even got back to camp. My heli was closer than the Immediate Response Team, so we went back to lift them out.’ Mitch paused. ‘The landing zone wasn’t secure. As we came in, it started taking accurate mortar fire. I couldn’t risk it.’
The silence returned. Lennie realised her fingers were digging into her knees, her spine clenched straight.
‘I could see the guys,’ Mitch said. ‘They were crouched down waiting for us in the dust. They’d only taken one casualty then. I never found out who that was.’
Lennie breathed out, feeling the pressure of tears like a headache mounting behind her eyes. Oh, he shouldn’t have had to go through that. Nobody should.
‘I pulled the heli up and we flew back to camp,’ he said. ‘By the time the fast air got there to take out the mortar position, the patrol had three more men down. The IRT picked up the guys who were still alive, but one of them was pretty bad and they were in a hurry.’
Mitch was speaking unemotionally, his voice sombre but calm, like he’d been over this a thousand times. Lennie supposed he had. It was a declaration, not a confession. This is who I am, this is where I come from.
‘The next day,’ he said, ‘I flew the recovery team back in to bag up Ems and the other guys. The day after that, I flew six missions for the IRT. The day after that, I couldn’t get into the heli. I haven’t been in a Chinook since.’
Lennie said nothing, trying not to let her shock show on her face. Mitch obviously wasn’t looking for sympathy, and she had a feeling the last thing he wanted to hear was that it hadn’t been his fault. It wasn’t about forgiveness either.
Pesh was pressing her head against his arm. Lennie got up quietly, as if all she was doing was taking her empty cup to rinse in the creek. As if what he’d just told her was normal. Pausing beside him, she laid her hand on his shoulder.
‘I wish I’d thought about Chase,’ he said.
‘There probably wasn’t a lot you could have done.’ Reluctantly, she removed her hand, uncertain what right she had to touch him.
His forehead furrowed as he stared at Pesh.
‘I just left him there at the camp.’
‘It’s not like you could have brought a dog like that home.’
Mitch looked up at her. ‘You did.’
‘I was in a hotel,’ Lennie said gently, ‘not a war zone.’
Pesh raised her head, ears pricked, reacting to something Lennie couldn’t hear. Around them, the wash of the wind increased, the rising breeze cutting the heat of the sun.
‘I guess I should get back to work.’ Levering himself to his feet, Mitch pulled his battered leather work gloves back on. As he stared across the creek at the fence posts waiting to be wired, Lennie wondered what he was really seeing. He put a glove to Pesh’s ear. ‘You guys enjoy your walk.’
Ten
Hope you’re free for dinner Wednesday. B.
Perched on the linen slip-covered sofa in the living room of her grandmother’s townhouse, Lennie read the text again. The signature line advising her that it had been sent from Benji’s new company car’s text system lent the message a casual air, like he’d rattled it off in a spare second between business calls. It had arrived on her phone three hours ago, while Lennie was still in her grandmother’s shower. And she hadn’t replied. But she was going to. She should.
Yes. She was going to say yes. Because she was free. She was free for dinner. She was not busy getting involved with a guy who wasn’t ready to let go of the woman he couldn’t save. That expression of loss, of regret, Lennie had glimpsed on Mitch’s face that day in the sheep yards hadn’t been for Tess, it had been for what Tess and Nate had and he’d lost. It had been for Emily.
Lennie looked down, again, at her phone screen.
Sounds good, she texted quickly.
The reply came back almost straight away. Great. See you there.
Hang on, see her where? As Lennie’s fingers hovered over the keyboard, Lois bustled back from the kitchen, the teapot in one hand and a plate of buttered banana loaf in the other.
‘So how is the old fool, anyway?’ her grandmother demanded.
Lennie shrugged. ‘Grandpa seems to be doing okay.’ As far as he was prepared to let anyone see, anyway.
‘Does he talk about me?’
‘We don’t talk about much, to be honest,’ Lennie said tactfully. ‘Just, you know…’
‘Work.’ Lois rolled her eyes. ‘The clinic.’ She poured the tea. ‘Some things never change.’
Lennie nodded. She didn’t want to lie. But what could she say about Jim that didn’t confirm what her grandmother already thought? She glanced around the living room. The fully furnished rental was almost frighteningly beige. The only glimmer of Lois on show was the oversized vase of white tea roses on the sideboard. Bought roses, Lennie assumed. How many times in her life had Lois needed to buy flowers?
‘Has he sprayed the hydrangeas?’ her grandmother asked.
‘I’m not sure, Grandma.’
‘He needs to spray the hydrangeas,’ Lois said sulkily. ‘The leaves will go yellow.’
Lennie took a bit of banana bread. Where? she texted Benji.
‘Is he seeing anybody?’ Lois asked.
‘Who, Grandpa?’ Lennie just about choked on her tea.
‘There’s that woman at the jockey club he’s always liked.’
‘No, he’s not seeing anybody.’ Of course he wasn’t. Was he? Oh god…Lennie took a deep breath. ‘Are you?’
‘Don’t be ridiculous.’ Lois raised her chin, her elegant face disdainful.
‘Grandma,’ Lennie said, ‘you left him. Remember?’
‘Well, he didn’t give me much choice.’ Her grandmother narrowed her eyes at the ocean view framed by the townhouse’s patio doors. Beyond the glass, a rough grey swell was rolling in to crash against the steep stone beach. ‘Five days in Sydney, I asked him for. Five days. After all those years.’
Lennie held her peace, watching a seagull lurch on the wind above the whitecaps. The phone in her hand vibrated. She glanced at the message. Hard Yard at 7.30. Want a ride? Can pick you up. B.
‘He promised me he was going to retire this year,’ Lois said. ‘He promised. We were going to do things. We were going to go on a cruise.’ Lennie stared in horror as her grandmother’s lip began to tremble. ‘We were going to go to Venice.’
‘Grandma…Put your tea down. Here.’ Relieving Lois of her cup and saucer, Lennie took her grandmother’s hands in her own. ‘Do you really care about Venice?’
‘Of course I don’t.’ Lois sniffed. ‘It’s the principle that matters.’
‘Why don’t you just come home?’
‘Do
you think he wants me to?’
‘Of course he does,’ Lennie told her. He had to want that. Didn’t he?
Lois shook her head. ‘I can’t. Not now. It’s too late.’
‘It’s not too late.’ Moving to the arm of her grandmother’s chair, Lennie hugged Lois’s shoulders. ‘Look, I’ll take you to The Lion King. And if you want to go on a cruise, then go. You’ve got plenty of friends. Take one of them.’
‘No.’ Lois straightened her spine. ‘It’s not about that now.’ ‘Then what is it about?’
‘He let me leave,’ Lois said. ‘After fifty-one years, Jimmy just sat there while I packed a bag. He just sat there and watched me go.’
Lennie’s phone vibrated again. She ignored it. ‘Well, what was he supposed to do?’ she asked Lois, with an inward sigh. She felt compelled to put her grandfather’s case, but she already knew the answer perfectly well.
‘He was supposed to ask me to stay.’ Her grandmother’s chin rose a little higher.
‘I’m sure Grandpa wanted you to stay,’ Lennie said.
‘Are you?’ Lois said. ‘Really?’ She sipped her tea, shoulders back. ‘That man has never cared what I want, and he’s never cared about me.’
‘Grandma, come on. You don’t believe that.’
Lois smoothed the pleated skirt over her knees. ‘I don’t want to talk about it anymore.’
•
As she drove the hundred-and-fifty kilometres back to Kimpton that night, Lennie was still shaking her head over the pair of them. Fifty-one years. You’d think a relationship would be out of the woods by then. But apparently the woods never ended, and Lois and Jim had got themselves well and truly lost in the trees.
Rounding a now-familiar bend in the road, Lennie felt a flash of anger with her grandparents. They were behaving like kids, throwing away everything between them when there were people who had no choice but to live without the one they loved, no way to fix it. No remedy but time to take away the pain.