Redstone Station

by Therese Creed

  Then it was time for afternoon smoko and the Country Women’s Association ladies produced yet another fine feed. Clive Lonergan took the microphone from Fred to announce the results of the weight-guessing competition: Gyro Edgson had won the steer, Olive Day the Brahman breeding heifer.

  While everyone was still eating, some of the donated goods were carried up onto the stand. Barry Field, a saleyards auctioneer originally from the town, had come north especially to offer his services. Jeremy displayed the goods in his usual theatrical manner, and the crowd made bids. Barry had the knack of picking the right starting price, keeping it all rolling along rapidly, and knowing when to pronounce an item sold. People were caught up in the moment and more than a few ended up with goods they hadn’t planned on purchasing.

  When everything had been sold and Barry was wrapping the auction up, a highly intoxicated Carrie Allen screamed her request: ‘How much for Jed? I wanna buy Jeddy!’

  Barry immediately took up the suggestion, calling, ‘How much for O’Donnell, Jed O’Donnell for a day – who’ll give me three hundred?’

  ‘Me!’ screamed Carrie, and Jeremy looked decidedly disconcerted.

  ‘Four hundred!’ screeched Brandi, without waiting for Barry’s prompt.

  ‘Four-fifty, who’ll give me four-fifty for a day with Jed?’ Barry rattled.

  ‘I WILL!’ Carrie yelled.

  ‘Five hundred!’ Brandi was bouncing on the spot.

  ‘You can’t be serious?’ Barry spoke into the microphone in his normal, non-auctioneer voice.

  ‘’Course she’s bloody not!’ Jeremy said loudly.

  ‘Five hundred!’ Brandi screeched again.

  ‘Sold!’ Barry concluded the session.

  By now the sun was low in the sky and the novelty bash was drawing to a close. People dispersed a little and some started to head for their cars. Tired children were wailing and a few adults were becoming loud and unruly after several hours of drinking. Senior Constable Glover was visibly on alert and ready for action.

  At this point Fred Campbell appeared on the stand to make a few final announcements and acknowledgements. Nato Mesiti came up to thank everyone, but became choked up with emotion, so Giovanna rushed to his side and forced out some heartfelt words of gratitude.

  There was an awkward pause and then the band began to play. It had been set up on the back of Nev’s truck not far from the bonfire, which Jeremy now lit for the stayers. The Long Socks, Bobby Socks and frocka teams had long since buried the hatchet and now grouped around the fire laughing and talking. Bonnie even went so far as to buy Brandi a drink.

  Olive came and found Alice, who was sitting chatting with Ewan, Bonnie and Troy, to let her know she and Sam were leaving. Jeremy looked up from where he was sitting on the other side of the fire with a bunch of admiring high-schoolers.

  ‘I’m coming too,’ said Alice, standing up to go with her grandmother. Jeremy was secretly pleased. He’d been watching Ewan and Alice for some time, not sure of the direction in which things were heading.

  But Ewan objected. ‘Steady on, Alice, we’re just getting started here! We’ve got some serious celebrating to do!’ He took her by the arm. ‘The best is yet to come!’

  ‘Yes, that’s what I’m worried about.’ Alice smiled at him and unhooked his fingers from her arm.

  Ewan jumped up from his seat and stood in front of her, grinning. ‘You’re not going anywhere.’ Over his shoulder, he addressed Olive. ‘You just head on home, Mrs Day. I’ll take good care of her.’

  Alice tried to push past him, first on one side then the other, but met with his solid chest both times. On her third attempt, he wrapped his arms around her just as Olive began to pound him on the back with the large rectangular Tupperware container she was holding. Bonnie and Troy looked on in amusement.

  At this point, Jeremy jumped to his feet, overcome with a violent compulsion to flog the hell out of Ewan. ‘Must be the rum,’ he told himself. He struggled to suppress the urge and concentrated instead on the enraged old lady battering his friend’s broad back. ‘Now, now, Mrs Day. We haven’t had a single brawl yet today. Everyone’s been so well behaved. Please don’t spoil it by starting a blue.’

  ‘Jeremy, get this neanderthal away from Alice!’ Olive demanded loudly. ‘She’s trying to come home!’

  ‘Webber, mate, I wouldn’t mess with Mrs Day. She might look like a sweet old biddy but, let me tell ya, she can be savage.’

  By now Alice had broken free from Ewan’s embrace and was facing him again, looking flustered. Jeremy looked at the glow of the fire on the contours of her face. A few curls had escaped from her plait and her eyes were large and entreating as she looked up at the big football coach. Jeremy wished intensely that he was the recipient of that look.

  ‘Bloody hell, Ali! Don’t look at him like that – he’ll never let you out of here!’

  ‘Too right I won’t.’ Ewan was grinning down at her.

  Olive brandished her container in readiness for another strike, but the next moment they were all distracted by a small explosion nearby. Someone had let off a firecracker and it spun an erratic course across the grass, spewing colour as it weaved between the shrieking youths.

  When Jeremy turned back, Alice had gone, though Ewan was still there and so was Olive, who was watching the commotion disapprovingly.

  Ewan looked around wildly. ‘Where’d she go?’ he exclaimed in dismay. ‘Bugger! Slippery little witch!’

  Olive looked surprised then pleased to discover her granddaughter gone. Without further ado, she strode away, leaving Ewan and Jeremy standing there. In the fading light, Jeremy spotted Alice at a distance, walking with Sam towards the parked cars.

  ‘She was fair dinkum!’ cried Ewan disappointedly. Like Jeremy, he was unaccustomed to knockbacks. ‘I just thought she was trying to stir me up, make me keener. It bloody worked too!’

  ‘Tried to tell ya, mate,’ Jeremy said. All his murderous feelings towards Ewan had evaporated. ‘Not like other girls, our Alice.’ He was smiling after her. Ewan eyed him suspiciously and shook his head before walking away dejectedly to get another drink.

  Chapter 25

  There was an unfamiliar smell in the air. Olive had been experimenting with a new recipe.

  ‘Bit on the nose, whatever you’re cooking, Mrs Day,’ said Jeremy from the door where he was pulling off his boots.

  Sam had just been on the phone to Arthur Sawtell, who had given him some statistics from Rotary to pass on to Jeremy. Counting the grey nomads, over four hundred people had attended the novelty bash, and Rotary had handed the Mesiti family a cheque for nine thousand, two hundred and twenty-six dollars. Sam relayed this information to those present in the Redstone kitchen and smiled warmly at Jeremy. Olive was as proud as any of them.

  Alice put the plates of food on the table and after saying grace, they all examined the strong-smelling food. Even Olive suspected she may have overdone it. Jeremy, starving as usual, decided to dig in first.

  ‘Holy hell, Mrs Day, this is horrible!’ he announced after forcing down the first mouthful. ‘Wouldn’t give this to a dog I liked.’

  ‘You mind your manners, you ungrateful sod,’ Sam said, in the tone that he normally saved for a misbehaving animal.

  However, Olive’s response was unusually mild. ‘It’s curry. I guess none of us is used to spicy food. But it’s good to branch out now and again.’ Alice nodded in agreement and Olive continued, a little more sternly, ‘I don’t mind you telling me when you dislike something I’ve cooked, Jeremy, however there are less offensive ways of doing it.’

  ‘Righto, give me a minute, I’ll try again.’ Jeremy stared at his plate for a moment. Then, looking up at Olive, he said, ‘Mrs Day, I like you . . . but I don’t like this.’ He pointed at the curry.

  Alice and Sam looked curiously from Jeremy to Olive. She tried to maintain a severe look but found that she couldn’t. She gave a small snort and then laughed. ‘I suppose I can cope with that.’

>   ‘Nothing to growl about on an ordinary day,’ Jeremy continued conciliatorily. ‘Best bloody cook I’ve ever come across, by a long way.’

  Olive busied herself with the teapot, anxious to hide the pleasure Jeremy’s words had given her. She changed the subject. ‘Jeremy, I’d like to take this opportunity to congratulate you on the great success of the novelty day.’ She paused. ‘Well done.’

  Sam and Alice made sounds of agreement but Jeremy was silent, so she went on, ‘It was all your initiative.’

  Jeremy looked up shyly from his plate. ‘Jeez, that’s real praise coming from you, Mrs Day. But I did have a bit o’ help you know. I just handed out the jobs.’

  ‘Yes, but it was all your idea. I was wrong to try to discourage you.’ Olive spoke earnestly.

  Jeremy looked bashful and stared at his curry again.

  ‘And there’s custard tart for dessert,’ she added.

  ‘You beauty! Worth every bit of effort for that!’ Jeremy grinned like a schoolboy.

  ‘Also, I’m giving you that Lonergan heifer.’ Olive sniffed primly to show that she was serious.

  The other three stared at her in amazement, but Sam and Alice made no comment.

  ‘Holy f—. . . mackerel.’ Jeremy fell silent. It looked to Olive as though he was scrabbling around for the right words. ‘Thanks, Mrs Day,’ he said finally, smiling at her with genuine humility.

  She recognised it immediately and smiled back. ‘That’s my pleasure, Jeremy.’

  With quiet determination and many sips of water, Jeremy forced down some more of the curry, with Alice and Sam following suit. Olive watched him, remembering Sam’s comment at one time about ‘writing off a young bloke’. They were making some headway in the reformation process, and at times she congratulated herself for it. But then, try as she might, she couldn’t dismiss the sneaking suspicion in the back of her mind that perhaps Jeremy hadn’t changed that much at all. Perhaps her new perception of him was simply a result of her beginning to know him at last.

  After eating a large serving of custard tart smothered in thick cream, Jeremy appeared to recover from the unusually timid mood that had kept him subdued through much of dinner. ‘Real nice type, that heifer. Show quality, I’d reckon.’ He wiped his dessert bowl clean with his work-roughened forefinger and sucked it. ‘Very decent of the Lonergans to donate her. Best not mention it to Wingnut, though, Ali. Don’t think he’d be too stoked about me ending up with her.’

  Olive tried to look grim. He was back to his usual self.

  ‘Don’t worry, Jeremy, I know when to keep quiet,’ Alice answered.

  Jeremy regarded her for a moment, then laughed. ‘Couldn’t be more different from me in that way,’ he said. But he clearly wasn’t going to waste time dwelling on that depressing thought. Instead he looked longingly from his squeaky-clean bowl to the remaining tart in the dish. Olive pushed it towards him, deciding that just for tonight, she’d go all out and bend the dessert rules.

  ‘Ripper! Ta, Mrs Day.’ Jeremy slid the wedge into his bowl and started into it immediately. Through his food he mumbled thoughtfully to himself, ‘Best bloody heifer I’ve ever owned.’ Then, more quietly, ‘Only heifer I’ve ever owned.’

  Sam looked up from his tart in surprise.

  Swallowing his mouthful, Jeremy looked around at them all and announced, ‘I’m gonna call her Olive.’

  Chapter 26

  Fencing with Jeremy was extremely productive. The three Redstoners were working on a seven-kilometre stretch that would divide Pandemonium paddock in half. They made a good team. Sam did all the tractor- and ute-driving jobs, Alice all the walking jobs, and Jeremy the tasks that required heavy lifting. It was an efficient combination.

  After months of fencing on and off, at last they were realising Alice’s dream of quartering all the paddocks of more than a thousand acres. The barbed wire was expensive and all the timber posts had to be first cut by hand, but they had already commenced rotational grazing in Top Cedar Tree, Mistake Creek and Hazelbrae. This meant that all the cattle were condensed into a quarter of the original area for a month or two, then rotated through the other quarters. The immediate improvement in health of the pasture in these paddocks had been enough to convince Sam that it was worth dividing the other large paddocks in the same fashion.

  But fencing was a manual and often tedious job. With all the mustering up to date and no other urgent jobs presenting themselves, they had now been fencing for eight days straight. Despite Jeremy’s best efforts to keep them entertained with his usual foolish tricks, the team were losing a little of their enthusiasm for the task.

  Sam took a spell in the late afternoon shade, cutting plain wire ties with the pliers for attaching the barbed-wire strands to the steel pickets. Alice was standing at a distance, sighting the final ironbark strainer post for the day. Jeremy had just lowered it into its hole and was holding it in place. He was causing her great frustration by tilting it in the opposite direction to the way she was signalling it needed to go in order to be straight. Finally, though, she was satisfied and came to help him fill in the soil around its base, packing it in hard with the flat end of a crowbar. She was tired and her lower back was aching.

  Perhaps sensing her exhaustion, Jeremy took hold of her crowbar and said, ‘Here, mate. I’ll finish this. You reverse the ute over so I can bore the holes.’ The ute had the generator and post hole borer in the back.

  Her fatigue made Alice sloppier than usual, and she swerved and overcorrected as she backed the ute towards Jeremy a little too quickly. When she could see she was getting close to the solid post, Alice slowed abruptly and was horrified by a loud bang at the back of the tray. How could she have misjudged so badly? Even worse, she’d just given weight to one of Jeremy’s favourite theories, about women being unable to think spatially. But when she hopped out to inspect the damage, she saw that she’d stopped a good metre from the post. Jeremy, looking at her owlishly, banged the steel ute tray hard with the crowbar to repeat the startling sound. Snorting in disgust, Alice rolled her eyes and went to start the generator.

  They were all relieved when at last the sun began to descend and it was time to head home for a well-earned dinner.

  ‘Who would be so rude as to call at this hour? Right on teatime!’ Olive said indignantly.

  Alice had just placed a steaming dish of baked vegetables next to a roasted chicken at the centre of the table. Her grandmother was adding a jug of thick gravy and some steamed greens to the spread. Any meal that didn’t contain beef was a rare treat at Redstone and the smell was tantalising. The three fencers were anticipating the meal with watering mouths. And then the phone had started trilling.

  ‘I’ll give them a piece of my mind,’ Olive muttered as she strode towards the offending device.

  But after a curt greeting and listening for a moment, her face relaxed and she said pleasantly, ‘Oh, hello, Fred, I’m fine, thanks . . . Yes, it was a wonderful success, we were all very proud of Jeremy . . . Oh, they were extremely grateful, Keira is in Brisbane now with Giovanna. And is Heidi better after her little operation? . . . Thank goodness for that. Now, what can we do for you, Fred?’

  Alice exchanged an amused glance with her grandfather at her grandmother’s cordiality to the caller following her ominous threat.

  But then Olive’s tone sharpened. ‘Alice? What do you need Alice for?’ After a pause she said coolly, ‘Oh well, if that’s how it is, I’d better put her on then. Goodnight, Fred.’

  ‘Can we start?’ Jeremy made his request the second Olive lowered the phone.

  Ignoring him, she looked at Alice. ‘It’s Mr Campbell. He has an important and confidential matter to discuss with you.’ Her grandmother’s emphasis on the word ‘confidential’ showed Alice how annoyed she was about being excluded from the secret. Looking apologetically at the old woman, Alice took the cordless handset and walked into the next room.

  ‘Hello, Mr Campbell.’

  ‘Call me Fred, everyone else does.
’ Fred Campbell’s jovial voice came over the phone and she could picture his rosy, good-natured face. ‘How’s the town’s best winger today?’ he asked.

  She laughed and Fred went on, ‘Alice, I have some good news for you – of a sort. Your father has left some items of value to you in his will. As soon as you can get to town I’d like you to come and view a copy of the document and we can make arrangements for you to take possession of—’

  Confused, Alice cut in, ‘My father? He’s sent you his will? Why?’

  ‘A solicitor in Cairns sent . . . Alice, you do know . . . You’ve been notified, haven’t you? Oh hell, didn’t you know he’d passed away?’

  Alice was silent. She suddenly felt as though the ground was slipping away beneath her feet.

  Fred, his professional hat slipping, swore to himself in annoyance. ‘Christ. Alice, I’m so sorry. The solicitor assured me that the family had notified you. What a damned awful way to find out.’

  ‘It’s not your fault, Mr Campbell. I didn’t even know where he lived. Maybe they didn’t know how to contact me,’ Alice said, her voice expressionless.

  ‘Well, I feel a right insensitive prat. Should’ve guessed something like this might have happened.’

  Alice spoke firmly. ‘Mr Campbell, I had to find out one way or another. And I don’t really want anything. Tell his family to keep it.’

  ‘Now, you need to come in and see me about all this before you go making any rash statements. Just take a little time to get used to the idea, then come and see me. Give Heidi a ring before leaving Redstone to make sure I’ll be in the office.’

  ‘But Mr Campbell—’

  ‘Fred. And no buts. You sleep on it tonight. Talk to your folks.’

  ‘Alright, I suppose so. Goodnight, Mr Campbell.’

  ‘Goodnight, Alice. And once again, I’m truly sorry.’

  Alice went back to the kitchen and replaced the phone. Her grandparents put down their cutlery and looked up expectantly. Jeremy didn’t stop shovelling food into his mouth, but his eyes followed her with interest as she sank into her chair. Her grandmother was clearly keen to be let in on the secret, but Alice couldn’t speak, her mind too paralysed to form any thoughts.