by Cathryn Hein
‘Uh huh.’ Simone’s gaze flicked to Jesse, who raised a hand in greeting. ‘Your brother?’
Jack nodded, and an awkward silence fell when he didn’t introduce them. Instead he smiled down at Zoe, still clinging to his leg. The little girl grinned up at him.
‘I saw the news. Everyone did.’
‘Yeah.’ He cleared his throat. ‘Look, Simone, I want to give you something. You and Zoe. But I don’t want you to take it the wrong way.’
‘Okay,’ she said carefully.
Jack dug into his pocket for the opal, making sure to grab the correct one, and handed it to her.
Simone frowned as she turned the gem over, then her eyes widened and she lifted a trembling hand to her mouth. She breathed in and out, and shoved the opal back at him. ‘I can’t take this.’
‘I want you to.’
She shook her head. ‘Jack, you know how much this is worth, I know you do. You can’t give it to me.’
He pressed the opal into her palm and closed her fingers around it, his big hand holding them and the opal in place. ‘I can. I want you to use it to get out of here. Find a town with a good school for Zoe, somewhere there’s opportunity for you both.’
‘It’s too much.’
‘It’s not. If anything, I wish it was more. You deserve a break, Simone. This is it.’
She bit her bottom lip and looked away, blinking.
‘Please,’ he said, giving her hand a gentle squeeze. ‘If you won’t take it for yourself, take it for Zoe.’
Simone’s face crumpled. Fat tears pooled and spilled from her eyes. She gave a sob that had Zoe throwing herself at her mum’s knees and looking up worriedly.
‘Shit, Simone. Don’t cry. It was meant to make you happy.’
Every word was like a hiccup. ‘I. Can’t. Help. It.’ She sniffed loudly and swiped at her eyes. ‘God, Jack, why do you have to be so bloody decent?’
He smiled crookedly. ‘I’m not.’
‘You are, and you know it. Now come here.’ She held open her arms and wiggled her fingers.
Careful of Zoe, Jack stepped into her embrace.
‘Why can’t you be Zoe’s dad?’ she whispered then laughed as he stiffened. ‘Don’t answer that. It was just a stupid wish.’
‘You’ll find someone.’
‘Not like you, Jack.’ Her hold on him tightened. ‘Not like you.’
The hug lasted a few seconds longer before Simone released him. She hoisted Zoe onto her hip. ‘Thank you.’
Not knowing what else to say, Jack shoved his hands in his pockets and nodded. He tipped his head towards Jesse. ‘I better get going.’
‘I’ll see you again, though? Maybe for dinner?’ She blushed prettily. ‘You can help me choose where to move.’
‘Thanks, but no.’
‘Oh.’ Her blush darkened.
‘It’s not …’ Jack puffed out a breath, hating this.
‘Ah.’ And he could see from her wince of hurt that she’d figured it out. She shifted Zoe closer in comfort, then forced a smile. ‘Well, it was lovely while it lasted.’
‘Yeah, it was.’
‘Right then. I’d better get this little one out of the sun.’ She kissed Zoe’s cheek. ‘Blow a big goodbye kiss to Jack, honey.’
The little girl did as she was told, albeit sloppily and with a giggle.
Jack felt his heartstrings tug. He blew her a kiss back. ‘You be good and look after your mum, little Zoe.’ His gaze met Simone’s. They shared a smile—hers sad and grateful, his relieved and full of hope he’d given them both the chance they deserved.
‘Goodbye, Jack. I won’t forget this. Or you. And I’ll make sure Zoe doesn’t either.’
He nodded and quickly strode for the post office, the hand in his pocket clenching an opal the colour of Elsa’s eyes.
Missing her, and the future they could have had, more than ever.
Chapter Nineteen
‘Something you need to tell me?’ Jesse asked Jack a few hours later.
They were heading back to the claim, the back of the ute filled with supplies—fresh and packaged food, beers, water—packed in coolers for the hour-long journey. Jack had grabbed a bit of hardware too, for no other reason than he needed something to keep himself occupied. It wasn’t like he cared about mining anymore.
‘About what?’
‘Don’t be an arsewipe. The little girl.’
Jack sighed and rubbed his forehead. He supposed he couldn’t blame his brother for making assumptions. He’d probably do the same in Jesse’s shoes. ‘Zoe’s not mine.’
‘You gave her mum a thirty-grand opal.’
‘So?’
Jesse shrugged. ‘Generous gift.’
Jack stared at the road ahead and drove.
‘What about Elsa?’
‘What about her?’
‘I thought she was your girl.’
She was. In his heart she always would be. But that didn’t make Jack right for her.
He grimaced at the irony. After years alone he’d finally reconnected with his family, and what happens? His father gets shot at, plunging him and Jesse into the eye of a media storm, and forcing Jack to give up the girl he loves right when he’s begun to believe they have a future. Fate had a shit sense of humour.
He glanced at Jesse. His brother was eyeing him, waiting for an answer, but he wasn’t going to get one.
Another kilometre passed. The silence thickened. Jack kept his focus on the road while his brother drummed fingers on the door’s armrest, only for the phone’s ring to jolt them both.
Jack checked the caller ID and pressed answer. ‘Dad,’ he said and, in case it was more bad news about Merisa, added, ‘I’ve Jesse in the car with me.’
‘Good, because I want to talk to both of you.’
‘Hang on, I’ll pull over.’ Fraser’s voice carried well enough over the speakers, but reception wouldn’t last much longer and from his dad’s tone there was a fair bit to discuss. Jack steered the car off the road and into the shade of a scrubby tree and set the gear to neutral. ‘You have news?’
‘I do. Turns out Elliot was misbehaving with someone else’s wife. Someone he should have known better than to mess with.’
‘Husband job?’ asked Jesse.
‘No. The wife. He always did like them passionate.’ Fraser laughed but it was sad laughter for the loss of his friend. ‘Elliot broke it off. She wasn’t happy. Decided to show him that wasn’t how you treated a lady by hiring some low-life meth addict to do the hit.’
‘Christ,’ said Jack.
‘She might have got away with it if the low-life hadn’t decided to take the money and set up business in someone else’s territory.’
‘Dumb,’ said Jesse.
‘Very. What low-life needed to do was stay low, instead he drew attention to himself. People wondered where he got the money from, and when people wonder they tend to find out.’
‘So he’s been arrested?’ asked Jack.
‘Nothing so tidy. He’s dead.’
‘The wife?’ asked Jesse.
‘No one knows. Police suspect she’s dead too, although whether by her husband or by the people low-life upset, no one knows.’ Fraser sighed. ‘Bloody Elliot.’
Jack stared out at the hazy skyline, at the droopy leafed trees, the dry rocks and nutrient poor dirt, at the harshness of this landscape, and thought how benign and simple it seemed compared to the violent, crooked world his father had just described.
‘Bottom line is,’ continued Fraser, ‘you boys can come home.’
‘Thank fuck for that,’ said Jesse.
‘There’s an airport at Moree,’ said Jack. ‘I’ll drive Jesse down tomorrow morning.’
‘What about you?’ asked Fraser. ‘I thought you’d be keen to get back to Elsa.’
Jack turned his face to the side but could feel his brother’s gaze. ‘I’ll stay on. Things to sort on the claim. I’ll ring Qantas, see if we can get a flight. If not, Dubbo will have someth
ing. Once Jesse is in Sydney, it’ll be easy to get a connection to Melbourne.’
They discussed arrangements for a few minutes more, then Jack hung up and opened the flight app he used on the rare occasions he needed to book a quick trip from the Ridge. Minutes later, he had his brother on a morning flight out of Moree. He relayed the details to Jesse, texted the info to Fraser, then reset the phone in its cradle and put the car into gear.
‘Tell me something,’ said Jesse. ‘Is this because of Merisa?’
‘Is what because of Merisa?’
‘You not going back to Elsa. I saw you two together. You looked crazy for each other.’
Jack said nothing.
‘You sent her the other opal.’
Jack’s fists tightened on the wheel. ‘Drop it, Jesse.’
‘Was it to pay her off like you did that other girl?’
‘I said, drop it.’
‘What the fuck’s wrong with you? You have Elsa, Strathroy. A frigging chance. Why stay here? Is it the opals, is that it? You got the fever again?’
But Jack refused to answer.
The silence lasted between them until the turn-off to the claim.
He braked and looked at Jesse. Jack wasn’t going to apologise—Elsa was his business—but he didn’t want to end their last day together on an argument either. ‘I did warn you I was shit at this.’
‘You did, and you are.’ Then Jesse laughed. ‘My fault for sticking my nose in. Funny, but I used to think about us becoming mates again. You know, bonding. Like normal brothers.’ He gestured at the rough track and camp beyond, barely visible through the dust cloud the ute had thrown up. ‘Never thought it’d happen here.’
‘Bonding? Is that what you call it? You spent most of your time here hammered.’
‘Oh right. Says he who disappeared down more holes than a jack rabbit.’
They shared a smile and Jack reached across to ruffle his brother’s hair like he’d once done when they were kids, and Jesse shrugged him off.
It wasn’t much of a moment, but it was a hell of a lot more than they had before, and right now Jack would take any progress he could get.
Without Elsa, family was all he had left.
*
In the days after Jesse’s departure, Jack expected to fall back into his old life and the pull of black opal. Instead he found himself bored. Bored and missing Elsa desperately. He missed Jesse, too. And the tentative new relationship he’d forged with Fraser.
He even missed Strathroy. The house, the yard, the hills and cattle. In the short period he’d been there it had become home again, and every dawn, when he woke to another hot, monotonous day by himself, with only Daisy for company, Jack would think of Elsa and question his own sanity. Then he’d drag out his reasons for staying away, and tell himself they were for Elsa’s own good. For everyone’s good. He just had to be strong.
One early evening, when he could stand it no longer, Jack grabbed a six-pack of beer and headed over to Dimitry’s.
His neighbour welcomed him with a pat on the shoulder and a shake of his head.
‘I heard you were back, and I think why? You are young, good-looking.’ Dimitry eyed him slyly. ‘Rich. But the pretty stones, they call, eh?’
‘Something like that.’
They cracked beers and settled around a small campfire. A metal tripod was centred over the hearth, a cast-iron camp oven suspended from its centre. Meaty smells wafted from beneath the oven’s lid.
‘Beef,’ said Dimitry, wrapping potatoes in foil. ‘We share later.’ He buried the potatoes in the coals and sat back. It was one of the things Jack liked about Dimitry—he was even less of a talker than Jack.
Music from the miner’s old record player drifted on the air. Jack recognised the album. It was one Dimitry played often. Hits from the sixties. Jack drank and watched the flames and sparks, and tried not to think of Elsa, but the music reminded him of the night he’d gone to her parents’ for dinner. The way she’d worn her hair long, but with two small twists pulled back over her ears and tied with flowery clip. The yellow top that gaped and showed her bra when she leaned forwards. Her teasing smiles when she caught him looking.
‘Simone,’ said Dimitry after a while, ‘she ask after you yesterday. I say I don’t know. She say, if you see him, you say I go to aunt in Coffs Harbour.’
‘That’s good.’
Coffs was on the New South Wales north coast, in the holiday zone. A big town, with decent schools for Zoe and plenty of opportunity for Simone to secure work.
‘You lose your woman though.’
‘She was never mine.’
‘Huh.’
Jack drank a mouthful of beer. ‘You still have yours?’
Dimitry gave him a look. Jack shrugged. Served the old man right for the comment about Simone.
‘No. She shot through.’
‘Sorry.’
‘Gah,’ said Dimitry, waving off Jack’s apology as he rose and shuffled towards his record player. ‘It don’t matter. No woman, no hassle. Is better.’ But his tone said otherwise.
And in that moment, Jack saw his future: a grizzled, bitter old man in the outback, void of any dream except that of finding the perfect opal. All because he was too scared of what his hometown thought of him.
Jack rolled the beer between his palms and stared into the flames, then at the purpling sky.
Fire and sky. The colours of Elsa. The little lioness who’d brought him to life, who’d taken him on and loved him, and all under the disapproving gaze of Wirralong.
What had he done in return? Run and hid, that’s what. Like a scared bloody rabbit down its hole.
Christ on a bicycle. The girl he adored had more balls than he did.
Chapter Twenty
One by one, the girls passed around Elsa’s opal in awed silence. It was Smart Ladies’ Supper Club evening in the salon. The others had all given updates on their businesses and lives, and now it was Elsa’s turn. After a brief run-down on Hair Affair’s operations, she’d brought out the opal.
‘Well?’ Elsa asked, when Iz placed it carefully back onto Elsa’s palm.
‘Are you sure there was nothing else?’ Maggie was wearing a gold collagen face mask that made her look like a sci-fi robot, but her eyes mirrored Elsa’s bewilderment.
‘Positive. Just a note with “For you” written on it.’
Even though Elsa had had most of the day to get used to it, the briefness of those two words still stung like a slap.
The opal had arrived with the salon’s morning post, in a small padded bag with Jack’s name on the back and Lightning Ridge Post Office as the return address. The sight of his name had Elsa’s stomach fluttering. In a rush of excitement, she’d torn open the bag and upended the contents onto the counter. The opal had tumbled out, followed by the note, which, judging from its creases, had been wrapped around the gem, then … nothing. She’d peered into the bag and shaken it, as if more could be secreted inside its air-bubbled packaging, before laying it carefully aside and leaning on her hands to regard the opal and note with bewilderment.
Frustrated, she’d rung him. As usual the phone went straight through to Jack’s message bank. The sound of his deep voice brought an ache to her throat. All Elsa could manage was a whispered ‘Please call me’ before it roughened completely, and left her choked with hurt.
Oblivious to the salon, to the street outside, Elsa had continued to stare, but the meaning of Jack’s gift—if a gift was his intention—remained a mystery.
She’d had no contact other than the phone call he’d promised her on arrival in Lightning Ridge. Not a text, letter or email. Just silence. Until this. An opal so beautiful it was like holding a solid piece of summer sky.
Yet the note that had come with it made it almost ugly.
No ‘Love, Jack’ not even a ‘Dear Elsa,’ but a ‘For you’ that may as well have spelled ‘goodbye.’
Elsa regarded her friends with prickling eyes. ‘Weeks of nothing and now th
is.’ She shook her head and bit hard on her lip as hurt threatened to overwhelm her. ‘I don’t get it.’
But she did. Jack wasn’t coming back.
It was the why she couldn’t fathom.
‘Why don’t we ask all-knowing Google what it means to be given an opal?’ said Serenity, pulling out her phone and tapping.
Iz and Maggie skipped glances between Elsa and Serenity. Elsa tried to sip her wine with nonchalance, but inside she was wary. Would it be good or bad?
Several seconds later, the beautician’s nose screwed up. ‘Urgh.’
‘What is it?’ asked Maggie, throwing a worried look at Elsa.
‘Opals are meant to be bad luck.’
The fruity wine soured in Elsa’s mouth. She swallowed it away and set down her glass.
‘Not helping,’ said Iz, chucking a damp towel at Serenity’s cling-wrapped head, which she neatly ducked.
‘I haven’t finished yet!’ Serenity scanned on then held up a finger. ‘Now this is more like it. Apparently, the Romans carried opals around for good luck.’ She angled a sly look at Elsa. ‘They called it the Cupid stone.’
A chorus of ‘oohs’ greeted the news.
‘So it’s a love token,’ said Iz.
‘That’s sweet,’ said Maggie.
Elsa, though, wasn’t convinced. If the opal was a love token, surely the note would have had more than a ‘For You’ on it.
‘Not to be crass,’ said Iz to Elsa, ‘but what do you think it’s worth? It’s pretty big.’
‘No idea. It can’t have been that much if he sent it through normal post.’
‘Can I have another look?’ asked Serenity.
Elsa passed her the opal.
Brow furrowed, Serenity gave the stone another once-over and typed and swiped at her screen. Suddenly, she whistled. Looking up, she wiggled her fine eyebrows.
The girls crowded forwards.
‘What?’ asked Elsa.
‘This bit of rock that your Jack oh-so-casually sent through the post,’ said Serenity, holding up said rock between her forefinger and thumb before tossing it at Elsa, ‘is worth a cool ten grand.’
Elsa dropped the opal onto a towel as if it were coated in poison. She stared at it with her hand to her chest. Beneath her fingers, her heart galloped madly. Ten thousand dollars? ‘I can’t accept that.’