Steph snickered behind her fist.
As the conversation drifted to work, with Sol briefing the staff about what jobs needed doing the next day, Rebecca had time to take in the framed photos that hung on the smoko room walls.
There was Sol wearing a polo outfit, holding a giant silver cup and standing next to a little chestnut horse with a zig-zag blaze. She noticed the curve of his strong thighs and tried not to look too closely at what was a fairly nice bulge at the front of his cream jodhpurs. The caption below revealed the picture was taken in Argentina. Another photograph showed a girl on a black horse sailing over a giant jump with yellow daisies at the base in an indoor show ring. The same black horse with the striking white blaze was pictured standing next to a helmet-clad Yazzie, who was also wearing a blue winner’s sash and holding a cup. Other shots showed pictures of racehorses placing first all over the globe, noses outstretched to the winning posts. Then there was a picture of Yazzie squatting next to a double pram containing two little babies. She had one hand on the pram and the other on the wide forehead of a giant bay warmblood, who stood meekly beside her, dropping his head. Rebecca wondered whose children they were.
She was startled out of her daydreaming when Sol, done with briefing his staff, was halfway out the door, apparently expecting Rebecca to follow pronto.
‘Last stop the fodder shed,’ he said after she’d hastily farewelled the team of workers and at last caught up with him.
‘The what?’
But Sol was already through the wide stone stable archway and in a parking area formally lined with box hedges. There on the other side was the new Colorbond shed Rebecca had seen the night before. The shed, destined to be covered in climbing roses in a few years, had solar panels on the bulk of the northwest-facing roof and beyond that a wind turbine spun lazily in the heat. At the door Sol stood waiting for Rebecca.
‘Thanks,’ she said, surprising herself by feeling a little gushy and giddy at passing so near to him. He smelled so expensive — probably wearing some kind of men’s fragrance that she was sure she would find advertised in the pages of Vogue. He looked so utterly ‘movie star’ or ‘private yacht’ that she told herself to get a grip. She’d only ever lusted after boys in farm boots in her younger days. But as she stepped into the silver-lined shed, thoughts of Sol as a sex-bomb dissolved. She felt the blissful ambient temperature of the room wrap over her skin, a relief after the strong heat of the late summertime afternoon. And relief too from the headache she was now experiencing due to Charlie.
‘Wow!’ she said, taking in what she saw. Racks and racks of long white plastic trays held grain that was shooting to green sprouts in strips that ran for several metres. Some of the racks tumbled with iridescent shoots of lush fodder, ready for harvest.
‘I saw something about this system on TV on Landline,’ Rebecca said. ‘It was fascinating.’ Sol seemed pleased with her reaction and looked at her openly for the first time, with a white-toothed smile on his face. He probably gets those cosmetically enhanced, thought Rebecca as she looked at his perfect teeth.
‘Grain goes in,’ he explained, ‘nutrients and water goes on in a reticulated system and green feed comes out seven days later. One kilo of grain is converted into eight kilos of highly digestible, alkaline green feed.’
‘Amazing.’
‘No more gut trouble for our horses,’ Sol said. ‘No more ploughing our paddocks for grain crops. No need to pour thousands of megalitres of river water onto hot dry soil as irrigation. It’s all produced in here. Daily. Two tonnes of grass a day for our animals, so we can allow those tired old soils out there time to recover.’
Rebecca felt her heart flutter. He was talking the Andrew Travis talk! She hadn’t realised Sol was heavily involved in managing the Rivermont property, and he was using the same methods she was so excited about. Until now she thought the Spaniard was a musician, based in Europe, doing a poncy thing like playing the piccolo.
Before she could push him more on the farm management, Sol continued on about the shed, ‘Plus with solar power, wind energy and organic nutrients, we’re hoping to put back into the system what we take out.’
‘But why sprout the grain and not hard feed?’ Rebecca asked, thinking of old Hank and Ink Jet, who ate oats by the bagful, only to crap them out the other end, seeds whole.
‘What most Australian farmers don’t realise,’ Sol said, his accent thickening with passion, ‘is that birds are the only creatures in the Animal Kingdom designed to eat grain. Horses, sheep and cattle are not designed to eat whole grains. It’s really hard on their gut. It makes their system so acidic. Birds germinate the grain in their crop before it goes to their stomach.’ Sol indicated the equivalent area of his own throat. Rebecca imagined kissing him there, just below the line of his freshly shaven jaw. She swallowed nervously at the rampage of her thoughts. It must be the shock of Charlie, she told herself.
‘This little baby has saved us a fortune in vet bills and given us an advantage on the track. The horses have never run so well. And as I said before, it frees our paddocks up for rehabilitation. The soils are tired on this property. That’s why we’re bringing Andrew Travis’s farming systems to Rivermont.’
‘Fantastic,’ Rebecca said, a genuine smile lighting her face, her troubles over Charlie momentarily forgotten.
The smile did not go unnoticed by Sol. He narrowed his eyes and tilted his head enquiringly at her. ‘You can clearly see the potential here before you. I like this in you!’
‘I get excited about good farming,’ Rebecca said, her guard down for the first time.
Sol was impressed. He smiled warmly at her. It was rare to find a person so quick to understand the benefits of the new system. She really is incredibly pretty in a very Australian, earthy way, he thought, despite her reddened nose and eyes brought on from her crying. Despite whatever was going on with her and her husband, Sol suddenly realised he liked her. She was so much more solid in the world than the wishy-washy European women he had spent his time with. She is like an Australian stock horse, he thought, amused at his own analogy. She was pretty but practical. Sturdy and sensible, but with stamina and, he suspected, a cheeky temperament within, once you had her trust.
As Rebecca walked up the centre aisle of the shed, taking in the irrigation poly pipe and computerised watering system, she was too absorbed in the excitement of seeing state-of-the-art farming technology to notice Sol’s close appraisal of her. As far as she could see, the system offered solutions for many problems faced when farming in this arid land.
I’d love to show Charlie, she thought excitedly, but then her excitement plummeted. Did she even still have a Charlie to show? Did she even want a Charlie in her life any more? Grief swamped her. Even if she hadn’t discovered what she had this afternoon, she’d still be facing the giant wall of his refusal to try anything new or ever think outside the square. She knew if he toured the fodder shed, he’d tear it to shreds, citing all the reasons it wouldn’t work, just because he hadn’t thought of it himself. And he’d do it in front of Sol, which would be embarrassing for her, and arrogant and rude of him. Not to mention ignorant.
‘But the labour?’ Rebecca asked; this was one of the issues Charlie would pick on.
Sol shrugged. ‘You’ve seen our staff. We need a cast of thousands anyway, so I’d sooner have them in here, harvesting a crop that is nutritionally consistent and of benefit to the horses, than going around on a tractor sowing grain crops that may or may not succeed depending on rain, and producing feed that will burn a horse’s gut, you know? And give them laminitis in their hooves so they can’t run let alone walk. It all adds up.’
Rebecca turned and practically shone, so broad was her smile at him. ‘It’s completely amazing.’
‘I did all the sums and looked at all the health science. Rivermont comes out in front alongside conventional feeding methods. Old Bill Hill fights to work in here on hot days. And wait till winter. They’ll all want to have a go. It’s a peace
ful place to work.’
Sol walked into the fodder rack aisle and came to stand before her, very near. He looked down at her and said softly, ‘You’d like it. You should give it a try one morning. Come and do a shift. It helps you think. I’d like to show you personally how to spread the grain.’
Is there an edge to his voice? Rebecca wondered. One of suggestion? She glanced up at him, suddenly self-conscious, realising his deep dark eyes were looking at her rather more intensely than before. Was he pushing for something? She saw one of his perfectly shaped dark eyebrows lift slightly at the corner. It’s definitely an invitation, she thought, and not a pure one.
‘Often in hard times, one needs comfort,’ he said in a voice far too soft for Rebecca’s liking, ‘and I know you are going through hard times. Men can be such bastards sometimes … trust me, I have been one … but now is my time to change.’ His head tilted slightly, searching her face for a response. ‘Maybe we could help each other, yes? In our search.’
She pulled a puzzled face and pushed past him out into the centre aisle of the shed. ‘Search?’ She shook her head. ‘Thanks, but I’m busy enough on my own farm.’ She continued in a rather cold voice: ‘I think now you’d better get back to Yazzie in the kitchen and to your “Man Cake”.’
‘Are you mocking me about my cake?’ he asked.
‘Are you playing me?’ she fired back.
‘What if I were?’ He shrugged.
‘It would be rude. And wrong,’ she said.
‘Are you always this frosty? Even in this god-awful heat?’ He smirked at her, amusement playing in his dark eyes.
She stood before him in her cowgirl shirt, torn at the side from a barbed-wire fence, buttons bursting at the boobs, he in his stone-coloured authentic Ralph Lauren polo shirt and creased shorts. He is playing me! she realised. Were all men the same? Here was another man just as prepared as Charlie to hurt his wife.
‘Me? Frosty? Are you always this forward with your neighbours, when Yazzie is so close by?’
He pulled a ‘maybe so’ face.
‘You are certainly better with animals than you are people,’ she snapped.
‘And you are certainly very rude and one of the most unhappy women I have ever met.’
Bec felt tears prickle and Sol noticed her pain.
He let out a big breath. ‘I’m sorry. But yes,’ he continued, ‘I do prefer animals to people. Forgive me. Now I must get going. Andrew Travis is expecting me. Please, find your own way back to the house.’ And then he was gone.
She stood in the shed, holding in tears, pressing her nails into the palms of her hands so hard they hurt. How could he do that to the beautiful Yazzie? Rebecca felt a wave of guilt because she had actually been excited by his nearness. The way he looked. His smell. His complexity. But she shut out the thoughts. Again her mind ran to the same questions. Were all men the same? Cheats? After one thing?
Her jaw clenched, her headache worsening, Rebecca walked back out into the daylight.
As she passed the stables, she heard a wolf whistle. Turning, she saw Joey standing with a wheelbarrow. He was leaning on a shovel at a pile of sawdust. She noted his tight faded denim jeans, hitched closely to his hips with a brown leather belt. He wore a body-hugging blue singlet and again that wide cheeky smile. The sweat on his brow was trapping dark curls against his skin. From his expression, Rebecca could tell Joey clearly had not missed the fact she looked red-faced and flustered coming from the fodder shed.
‘Did you enjoy looking at Sol’s assets?’ he called to her as he tilted his chin arrogantly upwards and smirked.
She tucked her head down and kept walking.
‘You’ve got a good set of assets yourself, cougar girl,’ he said, bending over for another shovel load, ‘and I’m liking looking at ’em right now. Later maybe, baby?’
‘Huh!’ was all Rebecca managed to reply as she stomped off towards the homestead.
Eleven
Charlie stood at the hollow-log kennels under the pepper trees, the bucket of dog pellets sitting by his worn-out boots. Nervously, with one eye on his master, Stripes wove in and out of his kennel on the end of his chain, saliva dripping to the ground, while Bec’s old dog Stubby sat gazing through foggy eyes, beating up mini dust storms with the very tip of her tail. The dog was blind and deaf, but could still miraculously work sheep if they didn’t get too much of a run on her. And she always knew when it was dinnertime. Charlie growled at Stripes to settle, then pulled his phone from his pocket. It was getting late. He tipped pellets into an old rusted oil tin for Stubby and watched as the dog got up and shuffled over.
Every night Charlie thought about shooting the old Kelpie, who was these days more black with grey on the points than black and tan. But she was Bec’s dog. Yet another one of her links to the past and the glory days of her youth on Waters Meeting with Tom. There were days when the old dog was too disoriented to come out of her kennel. Other days Charlie could tell Stubby suffered from the pain of a long-ago diagnosed tumour that there was no use treating. To Charlie, it seemed pointless to keep Stubby alive, but Bec had the final say on the matter. She wasn’t letting go.
Despite her constant moaning that she wanted another pup, Charlie had refused. When would she have time to train it? He would end up copping the rap for training his way with methods she didn’t agree with. And it was always up to him to feed the useless mongrels. Never her. She always just hid in the house.
His fingers slid over the screen of his phone and he began to type a message to Rebecca. Where the eff are you? He pressed the send button.
Normally Rebecca would’ve been onto him several times via the phone: to check dinner was under way; to badger him into going to the Andrew Travis grazing night; to bark orders at him about taking the dead sheep, compliments of Kelvin’s rough work crew, away from the yard. But not a word from her all day. Maybe she couldn’t, or more likely wouldn’t, use the new iPhone as a sulky protest over the tractor. Just as he thought this, the phone beeped a message.
Meet you there, was all Rebecca replied.
Charlie frowned. Something was up. Was it to do with that bloody greenie farmer bloke Andrew? Charlie realised the no-hoper New Ager would’ve been travelling through Bendoorin today on his way to the information night at the Dingo Trapper. And Bendoorin was where Bec had been. Had they been meeting up with each other?
But what if he was wrong?
Charlie remembered the brief conversation with Rebecca this morning about getting their marriage back on track. Suddenly guilt over Janine found him. He raised his phone again and typed a row of Xs to his wife and pressed the send button. He knew the token kisses would buy him a load of brownie points. They would also steer Bec away from thinking that he was onto her about Andrew. Charlie thought of Janine again. Today, after her moans of passion had subsided, he remembered with a grimace, she’d suggested they run off somewhere together. He’d assumed she was joking. She’d gone silent when he laughed at the notion. Charlie sighed. It was getting complicated. He had thought Janine understood that it was all just a passing fun fling, to take their minds off the drudgery of their lives. She was getting too clingy.
To keep Janine calm, and quiet, he raised his phone again and forwarded her the same row of kisses. He had learned that you had to be careful with women. They could get hysterical over the smallest things. The kisses would earn him brownie points there too, he concluded.
Satisfied with himself, Charlie threw the last of the dog pellets at Stripes, neglecting to refill the dogs’ water, and jogged through the slanted old wooden gate to the side of the homestead, headed for the shower. He needed to wash the scent of Janine from his skin and get himself down to the pub quick smart.
As he kicked off his boots in the mudroom and made his way along the hall to the stairs, he winced, his fingertips meeting with the fresh bright blood-red scratches that Janine’s acrylic nails had left on the back of his neck. He smiled. All in all, it had been a good day.
&nb
sp; After lunchtime, following a spate of sexting, Janine had turned up at the Waters Meeting machinery shed, telling her husband, Morris, she was off for a hit of tennis with Ursula. As if Ursula would play tennis, thought Charlie. Janine wasn’t too bright with her alibis. But he had the feeling Morris really didn’t care where his wife was. So long as his stud rams were shedded and fed, and there was The Land to read and a square meal to eat at the end of the day, Morris wasn’t fussed about Janine’s whereabouts. Charlie suspected Morris liked the peace when she was gone and was more aroused by the soft crimp of his white-faced Merryville ewes than Janine’s black, somewhat coarse hair and overbearing presence.
Charlie had been adjusting the discs on the plough when Janine’s little sports Jeep had beetled to a halt. She alighted to the tunes of Dr Hook and stood before him, legs long, mostly toned and deeply tanned in an itty-bitty tennis skirt, wielding a racquet.
‘Anyone for tennis?’ she said suggestively, then laughed.
At first Charlie had been nervous Bec would arrive back from town, but he knew that time was on his side. She’d be a while yet. It was the scent of Janine’s perfume and the way she grabbed directly for his backside that got him.
‘I’m addicted,’ she had said as she bit at his earlobe. She ran her fingers into his jeans pocket.
‘Is that an iPhone or are you just pleased to see me?’
‘Both,’ he’d said. It was so good to feel truly wanted by a woman, not like Bec who only wanted a bit when she was tipsy. Charlie had pushed Janine up against the Jeep, his hands roving under her skirt, happy to find she wasn’t wearing any undies.
‘You wanna play tennis? Do you? Huh?’ he’d said, shoving his finger deeply and roughly into her.
He’d taken her there and then in the home paddock under the hot sun. It had been great, up until the part Janine had confessed she was falling for him. He’d silenced her with a jovial whack on the arse with the tennis racquet and told her to ‘get going’ before Bec came home. He’d lied that she was on her way very soon.
The Farmer's Wife Page 10