by Cathryn Hein
She dropped her arms and softened her tone. ‘Are you sure you won’t come to Nan and Pop’s for Christmas? You’d be more than welcome, I promise, and if at any time you felt uncomfortable you could easily leave. No one would think anything bad. Trust me, you wouldn’t be the first guest to scarper in fright. My brother Tim’s last girlfriend was so overwhelmed she barely made it through to pudding. Mind you, that was Pop’s fault for killing the Christmas duck in front of her, then offering her a thigh at lunch. Poor thing nearly passed out.’
That made him smile at least, but his gaze remained lowered, his chin down.
Elsa bobbed her head, forcing Jack to meet her gaze. ‘Tempted? At least a little? My nan’s pudding is legendary.’
‘A little.’ He straightened. ‘But I need to visit Mum and I’ve things to do at Strathroy. It’s not exactly fire ready, and with this weather …’
All excuses, but Elsa couldn’t force the man, no matter how much she wanted to. ‘Sure?’
‘Yeah. Thanks for the offer though.’
‘Okay, but if you change your mind, or even if you just feel like someone to talk to …’ She snatched a business card and pen off the counter and scribbled her mobile number on the back, then handed it to him. ‘Call me.’
He turned the card over and read her number, then tucked it into his pocket. With a nod, he headed for the door.
‘Jack?’
He stood with it open, warm breeze brushing his shorts and shirt, handsome and stoic in his sadness and isolation. Elsa wished she had the courage to hug him.
‘Merry Christmas.’
‘Merry Christmas, Elsa.’ And with a small smile, he was gone.
Chapter Eight
Jack spent Christmas Eve in the kitchen with the radio playing, reading an old hardback copy of Nevil Shute’s On the Beach that he’d found on a bookshelf, and trying desperately not to give in to the siren call that was Elsa.
An impossible task.
The book was an abyss—a depressing post-apocalyptic tale where every character was doomed—while Elsa promised only light. Jack had pinned her business card to the fridge, and his attention kept drifting towards it, wondering if she’d seen the movie version of the book. He wanted to phone and ask, hear the warmth in her voice as she teased him about his ‘film virginity.’ He wanted more of that hot, thrilling feeling he experienced whenever their gazes connected.
What he really wanted to do was take her to bed, but that wouldn’t be happening any time soon. Probably not ever.
Jack tossed On the Beach aside and brooded for a while, drumming his fingers as the radio played yet another Christmas carol. Books were usually his saviour from loneliness and boredom, but tonight it wasn’t working. For all its pessimism, he couldn’t blame the story either. His concentration was shot.
He wandered outside and stood at the edge of the yard, staring at the hills. Daisy sat at his feet, panting. Night had brought little respite from the heat and even the usual chorus of insects and night birds sounded dull in the thick air.
Another Christmas spent alone with his dog. It was so familiar he may as well be back on his claim.
He looked down at the heeler. Daisy looked up, her mouth closing in expectation. He bent to stroke her head. ‘The best people, hey Daise?’
Which only made him think of Elsa telling him the reason he thought that was because he’d yet to meet anyone better.
He had. He just didn’t know what to do about it.
As much as Jack wanted to believe she was right about most people not thinking the worst, after all these years it was hard to believe. Yeah, there were a few in town who didn’t care who he was. Angus for starters, but the solicitor had been a friend of the family for so long he hardly counted. Elsa’s mum sounded cool, but that was hardly a surprise given what Elsa was like. The new florist bloke had been friendly too, as were the guys at the farm supplies and the stock agent. They were all young though, from a different generation, or out of towners. The old-timers—who Elsa likely relied on for day-to-day business—never forgot, or changed.
Every trip into town he felt the sting of their needle-like looks. In the street, in the supermarket. In the pursed mouths of the old ladies manning the church cake stall near the post office, when he came to collect the mail. Jack felt too much for Elsa to let her get stung too.
That didn’t stop him from wanting her though.
Sleep didn’t help. Jack woke early. He lay in bed staring at the dawn as it painted the walls of his old bedroom in rose gold, reminding him of Elsa’s hair. His mind drifted, remembering the way her hands had felt on his, on his arms as she’d rubbed oily stuff into them, fingers gentle but sure. The closeness of her body as she’d shaved him, bare, freckled skin so near he could feel the heat of it. The way she smelled of shampoo and other hair things. Her gorgeous, laughing smile as she’d related the anecdote about her brother’s girlfriend and the duck. How she’d claimed she wanted to know all Jack’s sides—good and bad, perfect and imperfect.
She was the kind of girl to make a man believe in himself.
Jack did, for the most part, but Wirralong had a way of wriggling under his skin, exposing all his old insecurities, making him feel like he didn’t belong.
But if he didn’t belong here, where did he?
*
Even though he’d knew it from memory, Jack replayed Kate’s last message again over breakfast.
‘Oh, Jackie-Jackie. I know you never believed, but it’s true. It’s really true. I found them.’
The sound of her laughter echoed in the quiet of the house, and for a heartbeat it was like she was with him, before reality kicked him hard in the chest. Jack closed his eyes and breathed as her message went on, then he shoved his chair back and dumped the remains of his half-eaten breakfast in the compost bin, as her happy voice called ‘Love you!’ and his mum went silent forever.
He wandered around the yard for a while, kicking at the dustbowl that the old vegie garden had become, occasionally bending to pull up weeds or pat Daisy, filled with restlessness and longing. Even early, the sun pounded, made worse by the still air. The heat a coat he couldn’t shed. Another heavy weight on his head, shoulders and back. Like he didn’t have enough.
Merry frigging Christmas, Jack Hargreaves.
He aimed a kick at a clod of dirt, only to have it explode into a dust-bomb over his foot. Daisy gave him a look. Jack looked back, then laughed.
‘Yeah, I know.’ He patted his thigh. ‘Come on.’
Minutes later, suitably slathered in sunscreen and a hat, he was bouncing in Kate’s four-wheel drive to yet another spot on the grid he’d marked out. Three months he’d been searching and he was still no closer to finding the sapphires. Unless a Christmas miracle happened, today would be no different, but at least it would keep him outdoors and away from the fridge door and the business card pinned to its front.
Jack crouched on one knee and inspected the ground, and stroked his jaw, still smooth after Elsa’s shave the afternoon before. Kate said she’d found the sapphires in the most ridiculous of places and then reburied them, but where? And what constituted ridiculous? There were other questions, too. How did she rebury them? Did she try to put the site back to natural or make it look like yet another mullock heap?
Without any other clues, he was starting from scratch.
His mum’s office had a few maps and charts covered in her distinctive scrawl, but nothing concrete. The gem room even less. Just tumblers, measuring and cutting paraphernalia, and drawers of less precious stones.
It had taken Jack more than a week after his arrival home to set foot inside the gem room. The memory of her working there was too painful. When he was small, she’d hand him uncut stones to play with, getting him used to their feel, the way the light refracted even against the roughest edges. Later, she’d given him small trays of zircon and asked him to find the sapphire hidden amongst them, then trays of spinel with instructions to do the same. She’d show him garnets
and opal and the hundreds of other stones she kept in her collection, until he knew every aspect of them by heart.
As he grew older, confident his eye was good, Kate would dig while Jack sieved and trawled through the wash for stones. He learned the triumph of discovery, the addictive thrill of being the very first to see a stone since it had been made thousands, millions of years before. And then, back in the gem room, they’d sort their finds together and Kate would make note of where they’d dug, locking her diary and more valuable finds in the deep floor safe beneath the rug in the office.
Her diary was beside his bed, read from cover to cover with a mixture of sadness, amazement at his mum’s determination, and dismay at the impossible task he faced. Strathroy was twelve hundred acres and while much of it could be ruled out as suitable sapphire country, plenty of ground remained.
Jack glanced up as a kookaburra cackled a laugh. He squinted back down the slope towards the house, then into the distance, towards Wirralong. It was still early, not much moving. Elsa was probably still in bed, dreaming.
He wondered what she dreamed about. If she woke thinking about him the way he thought about her. His relationship with Elsa was strange. Intimate but at the same time not. She’d massaged his face with clever fingers, shaved his jaw with steady hands, rubbed oil on his arms in a way that felt special, like she was doing it just for him. Teased and breathed laughter into his ear, and made his pulse turn rapid and every thought head south.
She’d got him to reveal more about himself than he told anyone in years, even Simone, and they’d been lovers. Jack didn’t know why. Somehow talking to Elsa felt okay. Like he wanted her to know him. Like he could trust her.
He looked down. ‘Pretty stupid, hey Daise?’
The dog yawned.
‘Yeah.’ He lifted his hat and ran his hand through his already sweaty hair. ‘Bloke’s a fool.’
A fool who felt more than a little bit in love.
Jack hoisted up a shovel. He doubted his crush on Elsa was something he could sweat out, but he was going to give it a red-hot go.
*
‘Merry Christmas,’ said Jack. ‘How’s it going?’
‘Going fine.’
More than fine by the background noise. Jesse was at some sort of party, probably a pool party if the splashes and squeals were to be believed. It hadn’t softened him to Jack though. The conversation was as stilted as their last few.
‘Sounds like it. Are you at Dad’s?’
‘Yeah.’
Jack ached at his brother’s lack of feeling. ‘How is he?’
‘Why don’t you call him yourself and find out?’
‘Jesus, Jesse. It’s Christmas. Can’t we call a truce for a day?’
Party noise drifted across the line. More splashes. Girly laughter. Music. Finally Jesse sighed. ‘Yeah. All right. What did you get up to then?’
‘Nothing much. Did some more digging. Checked stock.’
‘Any luck?’
‘No,’ said Jack, looking at the window. The slowly lowering sun glazed the hills in vibrant colour, so different from the faded haze of the heat-soaked day. It was easy to imagine now the gems that could be hidden in their creeks and crags, but he’d dug and sieved and washed into the afternoon and found nothing, not even spinel.
‘Why are you even bothering? You never believed in them before.’
‘I know.’ Jack wasn’t sure he did now, but Kate wouldn’t have lied about her discovery. ‘I guess I just want to. For Mum.’
‘And do what with them? Sell them? You don’t need the money.’
‘I don’t know. I’ll work that out later. Got to find the buggers first.’
‘You’re just like her,’ said Jesse, his words spitting out, the slight slur he’d been hiding now obvious. Jack cursed himself for not calling earlier. A drunk Jesse was dangerous. ‘Obsessed with stupid rocks.’
‘Jesse.’
‘You could have been here, Jack. With me and Dad.’ Jesse’s bitterness was back in force, as it had been the day he’d come to Wirralong to see Angus about Kate’s will and visit her grave. As it had been every conversation since. Not that there’d been many. ‘But you never even called, never asked.’
‘You never invited me.’
‘Yeah, because you don’t give a shit. Look, I have to go. Enjoy what’s left of your Christmas.’
Jack set the phone carefully down. He stood in the kitchen, staring blankly, wondering what the hell he’d done that was so wrong in Jesse’s eyes. He’d gone to chase black opal. Why was that so different to Jesse abandoning Strathroy and Mum to live with their dad? It didn’t mean he didn’t love them. Didn’t mean he wasn’t there for them. He’d come in a heartbeat if Jesse needed him. Jesse knew that.
Didn’t he?
His gaze hit the fridge and Elsa’s card.
Nope, not going there. He’d already spoiled one person’s day, he wasn’t going to spoil another.
Chapter Nine
After a blistering New Year, southerly winds swept in a welcome cool change the first week of January. Although Jack had used it as an excuse to get out of accepting Elsa’s invitation to Christmas with her family, the hot, dry conditions had reinforced how ill-prepared Strathroy was for fire. There’d already been blazes across the border in South Australia, and more in New South Wales.
On arrival, Jack had concentrated only on the basics. He’d cleared around the house and sheds, checked the gutters, pruned trees and slashed grass where necessary, and made sure the farm’s ancient water tanker was serviceable. Someone else would take care of the rest. A manager. New owner. Someone.
He hadn’t given it too much thought, his mind on the sapphires, his brother and Elsa. Now, with the summer not even half gone, and the worst fire month looming, Jack had to face that if Strathroy was to become home, then the responsibility was his.
Everything was his responsibility now, and the burden felt heavy. There was too much to do. A property to sort, sapphires to be found. More importantly, he had to somehow fix his relationship with his brother.
After all that, if there was energy left, he might even have a go at fixing his own empty life.
Jack hadn’t ventured into town since New Year’s Eve, over a week ago, when he quickly checked the mail and grabbed a few groceries and a carton of beer, and some dog bones for Daisy. This morning he had errands to run. More shopping, mail and a chat to the stock agent about buying extra stock for Strathroy. The cattle he’d bought had barely made a dent on the grass, and if he was going to make a start at being Elsa’s gentleman farmer, he might as well do it properly.
Jack was sifting through his mail, head down, when he bumped into Angus. They shook hands, their warmth immediate and genuine.
‘How are you getting on at Strathroy?’ asked Angus.
‘Good. Starting to make inroads. Still plenty to do though.’ Jack indicated down the street to show where he’d just been. ‘Just talked to Ross about buying some more cattle.’
‘Excellent to hear. I was worried you were going to sell once …’ Angus glanced around. The post office was right next to the church and, as usual, a cake stand was running on the footpath out front. As was gossip and big flapping ears. Angus steered Jack towards the florist. ‘Once you found them.’
‘Thought about it.’ Jack shrugged. They were diagonally opposite Hair Affair. Jack tried not to look. ‘Decided to hang around.’
‘Good. It’d be a shame not to have a Hargreaves at Strathroy.’ He tilted his head. ‘Any luck?’
Jack raked a hand through his hair. He was probably due for another cut. ‘None. Got me buggered where she found them.’
Angus patted his shoulder. ‘Maybe they were meant to stay your mum’s secret.’
Maybe they were. Jack hadn’t considered that.
‘You’ll have to come over for dinner one night. Give me an excuse to cook something other than meat and three veg, open a decent bottle of wine.’ Angus stared at the women milling around the cake
stand. ‘I used to enjoy chatting with your mum over dinner. She was terrific company.’
Jack blinked. He knew Kate and Angus were friends—good friends—but dinners? He took a moment to assess the solicitor. Angus’s hair was brushed neatly, his jaw clean-shaven, and he was dressed in dark grey suit pants and a white shirt, and a plain red tie with some sort of logo patterned over on it. The way you’d expect a rural solicitor to look. Well off, but not flashy. Respectable. Conservative. Trustworthy.
Nothing like Fraser Greene.
‘Okay,’ said Jack, his ongoing disbelief at a possible romance between Angus and his mum making the word sound long. If nothing else he could do with the male company, maybe even some advice. Jack was getting nowhere with Jesse on his own.
‘Excellent. I’ll give you a call. See if we can’t arrange it for next week.’ Suddenly Angus’s attention was taken by something behind Jack. A smile broke across his face. ‘Here’s trouble.’
Jack checked over his shoulder. Elsa was in the middle of the road, hopping foot to foot as she waited for a couple of cars to pass. Being the country, they were slow, the driver in front waving to someone on the cake stall as they crawled past. Elsa had pulled up her hair into a sort-of bun with wispy dangly bits loose around the sides of her face. Her thigh-high, off-the-shoulder dress was white and frilly, and paired with matching heeled sandals. Against the dark bitumen, she glowed.
Jack breathed in and slowly out. Skin. Pale skin, freckly skin. Lots of skin. And a smile that lit the entire street. Elsa was gorgeous normally but this … this was going to take serious control.
A gap appeared, and Elsa dashed through. In seconds she was by Jack’s side, beaming at him as though he was the best thing she’d seen in weeks.
‘Elsa,’ said Angus, leaning to kiss her cheek. ‘Looking beautiful as always.’
‘Thanks. You’re looking mighty dapper yourself,’ she said, giving the solicitor a brief hug then inspecting his hair. ‘Next week?’