White Gum Creek

by Nicole Hurley-Moore

  The night wore on and Nick and Matt talked about the farm, the upcoming poker night and why Matt’s main character refused to cooperate. Nick tried hard not to look in Vivienne’s direction, or at the group of friends she was with. No doubt she had told them what she thought about him—so he’d soon have a whole tableful of hate coming his way. But he doubted they could say anything to him that he hadn’t already said to himself. He did catch a couple of glimpses, once when he headed to the bathroom and another time when he went and ordered another round of drinks. Vivienne appeared to be throwing back the drinks.

  Nick could hear her voice over the din of the room. He wasn’t sure if she was talking that loud or he was just being sensitive to it.

  ‘It’s not right, why should he be here enjoying himself?’ she was saying.

  ‘Shush, Viv—he’ll hear you,’ one of the friends said.

  ‘I don’t care if he does. He’s got no right to be here. Soph’s dead because of him.’

  Like he said, it wasn’t anything he hadn’t heard before. Nick slowly sucked in a calming breath and blew it out again.

  ‘Do you want to leave?’ Matt asked.

  Nick shook his head.

  ‘No, I’m tired of running away. I know how she feels about me—it’s never going to change, so I’ll just have to get on with it. If I leave, that gives her the power. She’ll see it as weakness or guilt and never stop. If I stand my ground, she might pack it in.’

  ‘Okay,’ Matt said, but he didn’t look convinced. ‘But from what I can see she’s had one too many…I’m not sure she’ll notice if you take the high moral ground. Oh, hang on, she coming over.’

  Nick’s heart sank.

  ‘Sorry, mate, this isn’t going to be good.’

  ‘What the hell do you think you’re doing?’ Vivienne snarled at Nick. Her fierce expression was framed by her unbound, shoulder length red hair. The rich colour contrasted her pale complexion. ‘You shouldn’t be here!’

  Nick turned around and faced her.

  ‘Hello Viv.’

  She leaned forward and poked him in the shoulder with her red painted fingernails.

  ‘You don’t get to do that. We’re not friends and you’ve got a bloody nerve to show your face around here.’

  Nick sat back in his chair.

  ‘I live here, Viv. I have just as much right to be here as you do. Now, let’s not make a scene. Why don’t you go back to your friends and have a good night? I’ll stay away from you if you do the same, and we’ll just ignore each other from now on.’

  ‘No!’

  ‘Come on, Viv, that’s enough,’ Nick said quietly.

  ‘You let her die! You killed her!’

  ‘I didn’t and deep down you know that.’

  ‘That’s bullshit,’ she cried. And then she raised her hand and slapped Nick across the face.

  The smack seemed to reverberate through the pub, and it was only then that Nick realised that everyone had been silent, hanging on their every word. The slap stung, Nick had to admit, but maybe not quite as much as being the centre of attention for all the wrong reasons. The last thing he wanted was a scene, but it looked as if he was centre stage.

  He turned back to Vivienne and stared back at her.

  ‘No, it isn’t. It’s the truth and one day you’re going to have to come to terms with that.’

  Matt had stood up and one of Vivienne’s male friends had raced over, grabbing her hand before she could strike Nick again.

  ‘That’s enough, Viv. Come on back to the table,’ he said as he tried to urge her to walk away.

  But Viv shook him off and glared down at Nick.

  ‘One day you’re going to answer for what you’ve done.’ She looked over at Matt. ‘I’ve heard the rumours. If you love your sister, keep her away from him.’

  ‘Whatever my sister does is her own business,’ Matt said. ‘Why don’t you go back to your friends?’

  ‘Don’t say I didn’t warn you. People die around him—Sophie did and so will your sister.’

  ‘That’s enough, Vivienne. I reckon it’s time you went home,’ Brett, the owner of The Black Sheep, called out from behind the bar.

  ‘What, you’re going to throw me out and leave this killer here? I thought you were part of this town, Brett.’

  ‘I am. Which is why there’ll be no witch-hunts or mob mentality in my pub.’

  Vivienne allowed herself to be tugged back in the direction of her table, but not before she glanced over her shoulder.

  ‘This isn’t over,’ she hissed.

  Nick watched as Vivienne and her friends grabbed their stuff and filed out of the pub. After they left, the undercurrent of conversation resumed.

  ‘Are you alright?’ Matt asked.

  ‘Yeah, though I could have done without that.’

  ‘You and me both,’ Matt said as he stood up. ‘I think we deserve another drink, don’t you? Whisky back at mine?’

  ‘Good idea—reckon I could use one.’

  Chapter 14

  The next morning started like any other. Nick ate his breakfast of eggs on toast and lingered over his second cup of coffee as Tabitha swatted her empty food bowl and gave him an expectant stare. He dropped a handful of dry cat food into her dish.

  ‘That’ll have to tide you over until I get back,’ he said as he gave her a quick pat before heading to the door.

  Nick stopped dead in his tracks as he stepped out of the caravan. For a moment he couldn’t seem to catch his breath as he stared at the brown teddy bear sitting on a stump over by the veggie patch.

  A teddy bear, by all accounts, should never evoke this sort of reaction, but Nick knew this bear didn’t have any right to be sitting in his garden in the early morning sun. He walked over and gingerly reached out for it, hating the way his hand trembled as he did. The brown faux fur was soft and silky to touch; he still looked as new as the day Nick had bought him. The bear with the big red bow stared back tauntingly, as if daring him not to remember the day he brought him home.

  Nick’s mind flew back to the day he’d seen the bear sitting in the window of a toyshop in Ballarat. Three days earlier, Sophie had told him that she was pregnant and Nick marvelled at the limitless joy her words had given him. He’d seen the bear and Nick knew he had to bring it home. It was the baby’s first present and he couldn’t wait for him or her. Sophie had loved it.

  Nick couldn’t decide if he wanted to hold on to the bear for dear life or drop it like a hot brick. It hurt to look at it, but he kept staring. He brought it up against his face and inhaled. The toy smelled of a rosy past, happiness, and it still carried the hint of Sophie’s lemon perfume. Time stood still as old memories swirled in his head.

  Nick wasn’t sure how long he stood in the yard trapped between past, present and purgatory, but eventually he placed the toy back on the stump and stumbled away. He didn’t want to let the pain back in. A lump formed in his throat, but he wouldn’t succumb to the fear. He kept walking all the way down to the bottom paddock. He had a farm to run and a fence to fix.

  He threw all his efforts into clearing up his ruined fence. Some of it could be reused, like the posts, but a lot of the wire was now unusable. Sections of it had been cut and it looked as if someone had wound a chain around the posts and pulled them out with the help of a car or truck. Nick had a closer look at the ground. Sure enough, it was kicked up in a couple of places with tread marks still visible in the dust. It was pretty obvious whoever had pulled down his fence was responsible for the whole teddy fiasco, and Vivienne was the only person who hated Nick enough to mess with him like this.

  When Nick had packed up Sophie’s possessions, he hadn’t made a secret of it. Peter had helped out and took some things back to Lana Telford. Nearly everything had been donated to the local goodwill shops and the church. The minister had turned up to take away several boxes. He’d also wanted to talk to Nick about grief and accepting what had happened, but Nick didn’t want to listen—he couldn’t. Even afte
r a year the loss was still too raw. He’d thanked the man for his time and basically told him to get out, in a vaguely polite manner. Nick frowned. Well, maybe it hadn’t been that polite.

  What was left of Sophie’s stuff was a small collection of mementos that encapsulated what their life together had been, and the bear had been part of that. He’d put everything—the photos, cards and bright pink plastic princess crown he’d given her when he asked her to marry him—into a couple of boxes and stored them in the loft of the big shed. Nick never went near them, but he couldn’t throw them away. It would have felt like he was throwing away what he had once shared with Sophie—and that wasn’t right. She deserved to be remembered, but it was just so damn hard.

  It was another couple of hours before Nick stopped and wiped his hand across his brow. It was hot work separating the damaged wire from the posts. He was sweaty and thirsty and he still needed to get rid of that toy. He told himself that he had to get the fence sorted first, but the truth was he had needed that time to pull himself together. He dropped the last post on top of the others and headed back up the hill.

  He was mulling over what he should do next. Should he go and face Viv and have it out once and for all? If he confronted her and told her to just leave him alone, maybe she would. It was worth a try. Perhaps he could tell her that if she didn’t stop he’d be forced to call in the cops. He should do that. And even though Viv was tormenting him, there was still that link to the past that Nick found hard to overlook. Viv had been Sophie’s best friend and he knew that she was hurting. Still, that didn’t give her an excuse to torture him at every given opportunity. The fence was one thing, basically boiling down to wasting his time and money, but the teddy bear was a whole new level of cruel. If he didn’t check her—God only knows what she’d do next.

  Nick had a plan. He would grab the teddy and put it in the loft, then he’d go to Viv’s. As he walked up towards the veggie patch, his eyes came to rest on the empty stump. Nick faltered for a moment, but reassured himself that the toy must have fallen down somewhere. But he couldn’t see the damn thing anywhere. Nick walked around the stump and then searched about in case it had rolled away. It was gone.

  Nick stood in his garden as the hot summer sun beat down on him and shivered.

  A couple of days passed. He’d met up with Jules last night and they had grabbed some takeaway and headed over to Matt’s cottage. Matt and Bec had been out, so they had the place to themselves. It should have been a nice evening but Nick felt disconnected and on edge and he knew it was all to do with finding the bear. For a second he considered telling Jules about it but then decided against it. Their relationship, if you’d call it that, was still pretty new. They had been on a few dates—dinner, the movies or just chilling at Matt’s place—but it was still early days. So after another moment’s reflection, Nick decided to say nothing because the last thing he wanted was for Jules to think he was unhinged. The truth was that the whole bear incident had rattled Nick. It disturbed him to think that someone hated him enough to put him through that shit. And if they hadn’t…? On an even more unsettling level, he began to think it had all been in his head. It had felt so real, he remembered the touch of the teddy bear’s fur through his fingers, but could he have imagined the whole thing? And the biggest question: if he imagined it, did that mean he was going crazy?

  At first, Nick thought that he should talk to someone about it. But who would believe him? And by talking about it, wouldn’t that be admitting that he’d just been delusional.

  There was a third option, of course. If someone hadn’t put the toy there and Nick hadn’t imagined it, then it could only be a haunting. Nick shook his head. No, if he believed that then he really was mad. He needed to keep getting out and about with people so he didn’t have the chance to dwell on his fears. He kept telling himself that he wasn’t going insane, that there was a logical explanation for everything.

  And he had been holding it together. He began to think that it was going to be okay. Since the toy incident, nothing else had happened. Except the other morning when he’d found a clump of forget-me-nots growing at the base of the never-finished house. Sophie had planted a heap of them around the place, but Nick had never tended them after she died and he figured that the years of long, hot summers had wiped them out altogether. And yet there they were, the tiny blue flowers waving back at him in the gentle breeze.

  Oh God, please don’t let me be crazy.

  ***

  After the stress around the farm, Nick tried to catch up with Jules whenever he could. Generally they went out for dinner, or sometimes a movie. She’d come over to Winters Hill a couple of times, but Nick always felt a bit on edge when she did, and they always ended up being short visits. He’d tried to work out why and couldn’t come up with much. Maybe it was just the setting. Winters Hill had a lot of memories and baggage—perhaps that was why Jules never appeared to be at ease there.

  Maybe it was that the caravan seemed so shabby when Jules was in it, or maybe it had something to do with his space. Or maybe it was that he caught a look of sadness and pity in her eyes when she saw the shell of the unfinished house. Nick felt that he had to explain why it was still there, but somehow he could never find the words. But when they were out and about everything was great—almost perfect. It was nice having someone to talk to and share a few thoughts, as long as everything stayed light and didn’t turn down a depressing route.

  Nick had been thinking about calling Jules all morning. Things had got in the way, which was pretty bloody typical on a farm—something always needed attention, because it was breaking down or, in this case, blowing up. He kicked the water pump one more time for good measure. He’d spent the last couple of hours trying to fix it and all he got in return was a hiccup and a bit of a whirl before it died again. He needed it to pump the water from the big dam up to the water tank that serviced the caravan and the garden. Nick still had some water in the small rainwater tank so he wasn’t totally dependent on it yet.

  The phone sounded in his pocket. Even in his current mood, he managed a smile when he saw Jules’ name flash up on the screen.

  ‘Hey, Jules.’

  ‘Hi, Nick. Listen, I’m just ringing to let you know that I can’t make it over this weekend. I have to go down to Melbourne. A friend of mine from uni has just got engaged so I’m off to the party. I’d take you with me, but I didn’t think you’d like to be surrounded by all those strangers for two days.’

  Nick visibly shuddered at the thought.

  ‘Two days?’

  ‘We’re all heading down the coast,’ Jules said. ‘Her parents have a place down the Mornington Peninsula, on the back beach at Rye. If you want to come, it’s not too late…’

  ‘No worries, sounds sweet, but I think you’ll have more fun without me,’ Nick said, making an effort to hide his disappointment. In an effort to distract himself, he tried turning on the pump once more. It spluttered and for a nanosecond he thought it was actually going to start. He was wrong. ‘Son of a bitch…’

  ‘Nick, are you okay? Did I catch you at a bad time?’

  ‘Sorry, Jules, I’m just fighting with this bloody water pump. Have a good time at the party.’

  ‘I will.’ She paused. ‘Have you got any plans now that I’ll be down at the beach?’

  ‘Nah, I guess I’ll just work, like always.’

  ‘You should go out. Maybe visit Matt or Freddy.’

  ‘Maybe…I’ll be right.’

  ‘Nick…’

  ‘No, it’s fine. I’ll just wait for you to come back.’

  ‘You don’t have to do that, you know. You don’t need me to be there for you to have a life.’

  ‘You’re beginning to sound like a shrink.’

  ‘I didn’t mean—’

  ‘Stop worrying and have fun with your friends,’ Nick broke in. ‘I’ve got loads to keep me busy.’

  ***

  Midweek came around and Nick found himself sitting with Jules in her
cottage.

  ‘So how are you settling into the school? Do you like it?’ Nick asked as he glanced over at Jules. They were sitting on the couch and staring at the TV. To be honest Nick couldn’t tell you what program was even on. They’d been there for the past ten minutes and they still couldn’t decide on how they were going to spend their evening together.

  ‘Yeah, it’s great,’ she said. ‘I was really grateful to have Sally to hold my hand for the first week. It certainly eased me into the feel of the school, not to mention that she introduced me to most of the parents. But she’s off on maternity leave now so I’m all on my own.’

  ‘And how are you finding that?’

  ‘For the most part, good, though the first couple of days flying solo were a bit scary. I’ve had a couple of hiccups, but everything seems to be settling down. The kids are great, but I think they miss Sally.’

  ‘But it’s working out now?’

  ‘Yeah, the kids are coming around,’ Jules said, smiling. ‘They’re beginning to realise that maybe Miss Harvey isn’t so bad and perhaps they don’t have to feel like they’re betraying Sally if they actually do what I ask. Sally is a fantastic teacher, but I’m the replacement for the rest of the school year and we all have to learn how to get along.’

  ‘Sounds like you’re a hard-arse,’ Nick said with a grin.

  ‘I’m just trying to set a few parameters. That way we all know where we are. I want to be more than just the babysitter until Sally comes back. I want to create a great learning environment and get the pupils to fall in love with learning.’

  ‘So what shall we do tonight?’ Nick asked.

  ‘I’m not sure—what do you want to do?’ Jules answered.

  ‘Whatever you want.’

  Jules stared at him for a minute and it made him uncomfortable.

  ‘There’s being agreeable and then there’s being indecisive,’ she said. ‘Decisions have to be made even if it’s only whether we are we going out to dinner, staying in or seeing a movie.’