by Gover, Janet
‘Shampoo,’ she said. ‘And I don’t suppose you carry kitchen stuff, do you?’
‘Shampoo is over there to your left,’ the girl said. ‘And we do have some crockery and cookware, if that’s what you’re looking for.’
‘Yes. Just the basics to stock my kitchen.’
‘Sure. By the way,’—the girl smiled—‘I’m Sarah. Sarah Travers. My parents own this place. You’re new in town, aren’t you?’
Tia nodded abruptly and went in search of the shampoo. The girl was simply being friendly. But Tia wasn’t looking for friends. And certainly not a young girl like that. A girl like that wouldn’t last a week in Tia’s world. Tia glanced at her again. Thinking she was unobserved, the smile on the girl’s face had faltered a little. She looked thoughtful and kind of sad. Perhaps worried would be a better word. Tia suddenly realised that just because Sarah had everything that Tia didn’t, her life was not necessarily a bed of roses. Perhaps the two of them were not quite such a world apart.
Tia wandered around the store, selecting some items she needed. The store was fairly large, but nothing like the supermarkets she had been used to in town. This wasn’t a supermarket – it was well … a shop that sold everything. From shampoo to casserole dishes. There were huge bags of dry dog food, Akubra hats and what looked like plumbing supplies. Well, she thought, maybe it was a super market after all.
She grimaced at her own bad joke and returned to the main counter where her purchases were accumulating into quite a large pile. And she wasn’t finished yet. Surely she didn’t need all this stuff! She’d lived for years without a Pyrex casserole dish. Why on earth did she need one now? Because now she had a kitchen and she wanted to cook. Her trailer wasn’t everybody’s idea of a home, but she’d spent much of her life in places far worse. It couldn’t be wrong to want to try her hand at cooking. Or to want nice towels when she showered.
She had lived for so long with next to nothing; just what she could borrow or sometimes steal. There was little point in having nice things when you lived in a squat. Someone would steal it the first time you turned your back. But now she had money. A job and a place of her own. It couldn’t be wrong to want these things … but it felt strange.
She was as out of place in this world as the girl behind the counter would be in hers.
Sarah was tapping numbers into a calculator as she bagged Tia’s supplies. That brought a smile to Tia’s face. The few times she’d had money to shop in a ‘proper’ supermarket, it had been all bar code scanners and card readers. This small town store had no such technology. She kind of liked that. It made her feel a little more relaxed. A little safer.
‘That’ll be a hundred and thirty dollars,’ Sarah said.
It sounded like a lot of money to Tia. She slipped her hand into the pocket of her leather jacket. Her fingers closed around a wad of notes there. She’d had her first pay day at the mine. The money was paid into her bank account, but she had instantly removed it. She preferred to carry cash. In case she had to run. ATM records made it too easy to find a person, so she had spent her day off riding all the way to Mount Isa to withdraw her money in cash at the bank. That was a waste of a day off, but it had seemed the right thing to do. She would be harder to trace if her bank activity suggested she lived in a town several hundred kilometres away. Maybe when she was more settled here, she would use the bank and the cash machines in Coorah Creek, but she wasn’t ready for that yet.
‘Are you going to be able to carry all that on your bike?’ Sarah asked.
Tia looked at the bags and suddenly realised Sarah had a point. There were panniers on the Harley, but they’d never hold all that.
‘Umm … I guess I’ll need to make a couple of trips. If you could hold it all here for me.’
‘Don’t worry. You’re staying at the mine, aren’t you? I can drop it off for you after work. I’ve got some stuff for a few other people as well.’
‘You deliver?’ Tia couldn’t keep the surprise out of her voice.
‘It’s that sort of town.’ Sarah smiled in what Tia imagined was a welcoming and encouraging manner. ‘We are happy to drop stuff off when people need us to.’
That sounded an awful lot like home delivery to Tia, but she wasn’t going to argue. She handed over her cash.
‘There’s a cream trailer home on the left as you drive in,’ she said as she put her change back in her pocket. ‘Set a bit back from the others. That’s me.’
‘I’ll find you,’ Sarah said. ‘I’ll just look for your bike.’
Tia nodded and turned to go. She took a couple of steps, and then hesitated. She was here to start over. That’s what she should do. This girl seemed friendly enough. Harmless. It might be time to relax. Find a friend. Just one. Then maybe she would spend fewer nights riding the roads alone. Sarah had no connection with the past. There was no threat here.
But there was. Unconsciously, Tia lifted her hand to rub the place on the right side of her chest where her tattoo was hidden under her shirt. The threat was Tia herself. And those who would still be hunting her. She walked out the door.
The store was particularly quiet that afternoon. Sarah had been left in charge. Her father was asleep. He’d returned from his latest treatment looking even more frail, telling Sarah there was nothing to worry about. The side effects were expected. The chemotherapy was almost as tough on him as it was on his disease. But, he reassured her, it would cure him, he was certain. Sarah desperately wanted to believe him.
She was also terribly worried about her mother. Gina’s hair, which, a few years ago, had been the same golden-brown as her daughter’s, was now a dull grey. Her face was lined with worry, making her look so much older than her years. She had been working in the shop with Sarah that morning, but Sarah could tell she was both exhausted and distracted by worry. At lunchtime, Sarah had banished her mother to the house, where she was hopefully resting.
To keep herself occupied on such a slow day, Sarah was organising the shelves and dusting. Since her father had fallen ill, things had been let go a bit. Ken Travers would never have allowed so much as a single dust mote to accumulate in the store of which he was so proud. As a child Sarah had often sat on a wooden crate and talked with him as he’d sorted and stacked, dusted and put tiny white price labels on each item. It had been a special treat for her to use the label machine. Her father would set the correct price, and she would then work her way along the row of canned fruit or bottles of jam, carefully placing the labels just so in the middle of each lid.
Sarah took a can off a shelf, and looked at the fine film of dust on the top. She should have come home much sooner. If her parents had only told her how sick her father really was. Going to college had always been more her parents dream than hers. She wished now that she hadn’t agreed. She’d certainly enjoyed her time in the city. She’d met people and gone to parties. She’d even taken a few holidays with her friends. But her college degree really didn’t matter to her. She was unlikely ever to use it. One didn’t really need a degree in business to run a store in a tiny town on the edge of nowhere. Still, her parents had worked hard to afford to send her to college, and she would not deny them the pleasure and pride of knowing she’d achieved something they had never been able to even attempt. She had spent those years away from home because it was right for her to know a little more about the world before she did the one thing she had always known she would do – settle back in Coorah Creek.
She used a cloth to remove the dust from the can before setting it back in place. Tears pricked the back of her eyes and she angrily rubbed them away. She wasn’t going to cry. Her parents had given her so much. It was her turn to give back. Her turn to be the strong one. She set back to work.
The results soon began to show. The store began to take on the familiar air of prosperity and care. Sarah wiped her hands on a rag, feeling satisfied with her afternoon’s work, but still restl
ess. Leaving the connecting door open in case a customer came in, she turned her attention to the storeroom.
The first thing she noticed was that the boxes were neatly stacked, in a logical order. That had always been her father’s way, but she doubted he’d done this. He wasn’t really strong enough to be hauling boxes about and nor was her mother. Perhaps the delivery man had stacked them. She took a closer look at the boxes. Yes. That must be it. The boxes were neat, but not arranged quite to the same order her father had always used. She turned in a slow circle, noting as she did some half empty boxes, and shelf space that was not being used. The storeroom, like the shop, was suffering from lack of attention. Well, she could fix that.
Sarah started sorting the contents of some half empty boxes, setting aside new stock to go on the shelves, and stacking the rest for later use. As she did, she noticed a small cardboard box pushed to the back of a high shelf. The sides of the box were battered and stained and very dusty. That box had not moved in a long time. Sarah stood on a wooden crate and reached to retrieve it. She smiled as she realised it was the box that had once contained her first pair of heeled shoes: some sandals she had been given for her twelfth birthday.
Deeply curious, she sat on the crate and placed the shoebox on her lap. Trying not to create a dust cloud, she opened it. Inside she found the sort of accumulated nearly-useful things most people put into small boxes and then forget. There was a key ring with a couple of keys, although Sarah had no idea what they might open. There were a couple of old pens, which would obviously no longer work. A pile of rubber bands had more or less melted together and lay on top of an envelope that was old and brittle and yellow and empty.
Sarah reached into the box and retrieved the keys. She’d show them to her father before she threw them away. Nothing else in the box looked like it was worth salvaging. She shuffled the contents around a little, and the corner of an old photo appeared underneath the envelope. She removed it and turned it to catch the light streaming through the storeroom window.
The colours had faded over the years, and the edges of the paper were curling, but the photograph clearly showed a girl of about ten sitting behind the wheel of a big prime mover. Her small hands gripped the big steering wheel tightly, but her feet were far too short to reach the pedals. She was grinning widely as she strained to see through the windscreen. Sitting beside her, his arm protectively around her shoulders was a handsome young man. His hair was long and dark and slightly wavy. He was smiling in a slightly bemused way.
Memories of that day came flooding back, bringing a smile to her face. She’d had a terrible crush on that driver. Pete, his name was. It was a moment of such excitement to be lifted up by him and placed gently in the driver’s seat of his truck. How far up she had felt. How very grown up. And how wonderful it had felt to have Pete’s arm around her. To have his approval. Her father had ducked back into the house and grabbed his cheap little camera to capture the moment. They had kept the photograph on a corkboard at the back of the shop for a while, before it got lost among the receipts and orders and notes. Strange that it had ended up here.
It would have been different for Pete, of course. To him it had no doubt been a little act of kindness to a lonely girl in an isolated store at a tiny truck stop on his road. She doubted that he would remember it now. She had forgotten all about it, until she saw the photo. Briefly she wondered where Pete was. Was he still driving this same route? Maybe he was the one who had stacked the boxes for her parents? If so, it just went to show that he was – if not a knight in shining armour – a good Samaritan at the very least. He was probably married now with a house full of kids. As for her; she had an education and a degree that could take her away from here. If she wanted to go. And right now, she didn’t. She couldn’t. She wouldn’t leave her father. If she did, she might never …
She caught herself. No. She’d promised her mother she wouldn’t say it. She wouldn’t even think the words.
There were no knights in shining armour, but a positive attitude could make all the difference to her father’s treatment. At least, that’s what people said. She hoped they were right.
Chapter Five
Max was seated at the long wooden bar, a beer in front of him. He had changed into civvies before coming to the pub. That was unusual on a week day. Both the civvies and the beer. Trish raised an eyebrow when she saw him, but she didn’t say anything. That was unusual for any day.
Max wasn’t the only person in the bar. There were a couple of regulars sitting down at the other end of the expanse of polished timber. He had exchanged friendly greetings with them when he entered, but he sat alone as he usually did. He wanted to avoid the awkwardness of drinking with someone on one night, and perhaps arresting them for drink driving the next. He was part of the town, yet not part of it, and he was happy to keep it that way.
He heard steps on the wooden veranda. He glanced up, trying not to notice the anticipation he felt and then trying to hide his disappointment when Ed Collins, owner of the town’s service station, walked in. They exchanged a greeting then Ed settled himself further down the bar. Ed had become a more frequent visitor to the pub since his reconciliation with his son last Christmas. Ed had a new laptop with him and was soon making use of the pub’s much vaunted Wi-Fi. Max knew he was planning a trip to England to visit his son Steve and his fiancée. Max knew a lot about most people in the town. Perhaps not quite as much as Trish Warren and her gossip grapevine, but more than most. After all, that was his job. He told himself he was just here at the pub to keep up his casual contact with the town. He really wasn’t waiting for anyone in particular.
And if he wasn’t, he was therefore not at all disappointed when the next person to walk in through the pub’s front doors was one of the teachers from the school.
Max ordered a second beer. It would be his last for the evening. A few minutes later, Trish delivered a burger to one of the other patrons. It smelled good. Max suddenly realised he was hungry. For a few seconds he contemplated ordering a burger for himself, but stopped. In a moment of honesty he admitted to himself that he had really come to the pub in the hope of seeing a redhead in motorcycle leathers. To stay here still hoping she would appear was a bit sad. He stood up and left the last of his beer.
He paused on the top step long enough to glance up and down the road. He listened but heard nothing but normal night sounds. With a sigh he set off home.
It wasn’t a long walk. He crossed the Mount Isa road and entered the tiny town square that fronted the road. The town hall, Coorah Creek’s only brick building, was at the back of the square. The post office and police station formed the other two sides. Town square was perhaps too grand a name for the tiny patch of grass, bordered by a flower bed. But, thanks to the mine manager, Chris Powell, it was green and the flowers added a touch of colour. Not for long though. Come the soaring heat of mid-summer, not even the automatic watering system installed by mine engineers would save the square from the blistering midday sun.
Max walked along the side of the station to the house behind it. Once in his home, he headed for the kitchen. He was a reasonable cook, but cooking for one wasn’t much fun. Once a week he’d make a big pot of something which would keep him fed for several days. At the moment it was spaghetti with a meat sauce. It wasn’t grand enough to be called bolognese, but it was tasty none the less. He spooned a helping into a dish and set it in the microwave. While it heated, he ripped the top off a can of Coke.
He carried his dinner through the kitchen door into the garage he’d turned into a workshop. He perched on a chair and ate, all the time studying the pile of old timber in front of him. It had come from one of the old houses by the railway station. Those houses were now owned by the mine, and he’d done a deal with Chris to take whatever timber he wanted. The boards were weathered by years of outback sun; any paint they had once known was long gone. There was something about this old wood that s
poke to him. This was part of a house. It had echoed to the sounds of families. Of mothers and children. It was wrong to simply let it rot.
By the time he’d finished his spaghetti, he had a picture in his mind. He knew what the timber wanted to be.
There was a sketchbook on the bench, but he didn’t bother making a plan. He could see the image so strongly in his head he didn’t need one. He drank the last of his Coke and picked up a plank. He weighed it in his hand for a few seconds, feeling its weight and its strength. Then he set it into a vice and picked up a plane. He slid the tool along the side of the wood, feeling the first layer of weathered timber flake away to reveal a darker, richer colour underneath. He was quickly engrossed in his task. He worked until the small hours, bringing that piece of wood back to life. Just as he went to bed, around one o’clock, the Harley roared through town in the direction of the mine.
He couldn’t begin to guess where the girl had been or why. In fact, he knew nothing at all about her and that wasn’t good enough. He wanted to know more. He would even be happy to hear some gossip about her from Trish. Not that he listened to gossip, of course. But Trish always seemed to know everything about everyone. She knew what was happening in the town. Sometimes before it happened. And she was seldom wrong. But despite several visits to the pub this week, he’d learned nothing at all from Trish. In fact, Trish had been remarkably silent on the subject of the Creek’s newest resident. That was unlike her. If he had a suspicious mind, he would think Trish was up to something.
His interest in the girl was work, he told himself as he settled himself for sleep. It was his job to check out any newcomers in town. Especially newcomers who might cause a problem. And if anyone was likely to cause a problem it was a good-looking redheaded girl on a Harley in a town full of single miners. Or, even worse, the FIFO workers who had left their wives behind.
Max had never planned to come to Coorah Creek. His honesty had brought him here. Well, that and a youthful tendency to speak without thinking. He winced as he remembered his words and the look on the commander’s face the night Max had arrested a powerful man who had been driving home late at night, weaving all over the road. Max hadn’t needed a breathalyser test to know the man was drunk. It would have been easy to let him go with a warning. Easy, but not honest. Three days after charging the man, Max had been reassigned to Coorah Creek, a promising career brought to a pretty abrupt halt.