Bella's Run

by Margareta Osborn

  Bella grinned into the phone.

  ‘Please, Hells Bells?’

  There wasn’t much Bella could say other than, ‘Okay, but it’ll cost you.’

  She was back in the bush.

  Spinning the ute around, she retraced her drive towards the Tindarra Road intersection and clicked down the indicator to head into Burrindal. Pulling up in front of the general store, she parked the ute and got out to stretch her cramped muscles in the sun. Taking a deep breath, she steeled herself for Shelley ‘Jelly Bean’ Lukey, and was surprised to see Shelley’s mother Janey appear from the timber screen door instead.

  ‘An-GUS! An-GUS!’ The ‘gus’ was delivered at an octave higher than the rest. Bella looked around to see who Janey was hailing.

  ‘An-GUS! Come here this minute, you naughty man!’

  Bella scanned the street. Not a person to be seen. It was very quiet for a Saturday afternoon.

  ‘Ah, there you are, you naughty little boy, Mummy’s been looking for you everywhere!’

  Bella swung back just in time to see Janey scoop up a fluffy rat-like creature that came running along the verandah. Two little eyes peeped out from mountains of white and tan fur, twin butterfly ears revolved like satellite dishes searching for a signal, and a tiny pink tongue came from an even tinier mouth to lick his mistress on the cheek.

  ‘Oh Angus, you are a love.’ Janey buried her face into the ball of fluff.

  Bella smiled and moved forward onto the step as Janey looked up.

  ‘Bella, how good to see you!’ Janey flung her arms out wide and Bella found herself wrapped up in a tight and furry embrace, Janey’s arms around her body, Angus’s fluff in her face. Then she felt a wet little lick on her right cheek.

  She detangled herself gently and moved back to the sanctuary of the verandah rail. ‘Hi there, Janey. How’ve you been?’

  ‘Marvellous, Hells Bells, bloody marvellous. Meet Angus. He’s my gift to myself now all the kids have left home.’

  ‘Janey, I thought you were supposed to get the puppy before the kids left not after.’ Bella laughed at her old friend.

  ‘Yeah well, going soft in me old age.’

  ‘You didn’t make Caro’s wedding?’

  ‘Nope, Tom and I had a date with one of those Winnebago van things in Queensland. We’d booked the holiday already when we found out Caro and Trin’s wedding date. Thought, bugger it, we haven’t had a holiday in ages and I didn’t want to bail out then. I’d never get Tom to agree to it again. He had a break in his motorbike tour dates, so I decided to just book the bloody thing.’

  Tom and Janey were semi-retired. For years they’d run a farm Tom inherited, then sold it and bought the store for Janey to run while Tom ran trail-bike tours. Tom knew the bush around Burrindal and Tindarra better than anyone. He was in great demand to lead trail-bike enthusiasts from all over the world into the mountains.

  ‘You meet the rat?’ A rough voice came from behind.

  ‘Tom! How are you?’ Bella swung to meet the bushman walking up with his old dog Rusty. She placed a kiss on his weather-beaten cheek and patted Rusty, who sat down and released a slow and gentle fart.

  Sheesh! The smell! Bella tried to keep a straight face but failed.

  ‘Yeah I know, he stinks, but he’s a good old fella, aren’t ya, Rusty?’

  Bella smiled at Tom. She’d always had a soft spot for him. ‘How are you?’ she repeated.

  ‘Good! How ’bout you? Hear you’re comin’ back to the valley for a while?’

  ‘Yeah, back for a bit to let Maggie take her trip.’

  ‘Do you good,’ said Tom as he ruffled Angus’s butterfly ears. ‘The only good thing about Melbourne is seeing it in the rear-vision mirror, ay.’

  Bella laughed. ‘Yeah, you’re probably right there, Tom.’

  Turning to Janey, she got to the point of her trip. ‘I’ve come to pick up a parcel for Caro and Trin.’

  ‘Ah,’ said Janey, a pointer finger in the air. ‘That would be them shit beetles. Trin’s been sweating on them coming all week. He was in yesterday but they hadn’t arrived. Came in the mailbag this morning. Can’t believe they send them by regular post. You’d think they’d die or something, wouldn’t you? I’ll grab them.’ Janey moved off into the store. Bella, Tom and Rusty followed her, Bella hesitantly at first.

  ‘Shelley not about?’ she dared, glancing around as she and Tom made their way over to the far corner of the old store. A slow-combustion stove burned hot, drawing them to its warmth despite the sunny afternoon outside.

  ‘Oh! That’s my other bit of big news.’ Janey swung back from the doorway of the little post office, eyes alight. ‘I’m a grandmother! Shelley and Joe had a baby boy. And he’s gorgeous, isn’t he, Tom?’ Janey beamed.

  ‘Well, if you call a red, screamin’ scrap of humanity gorgeous, then I suppose that’s what he is,’ Tom growled, although Bella noticed his smile was just as proud.

  ‘Congratulations, guys. Are they well?’

  ‘Fit as fiddles and bright as shiny buttons,’ called Janey from the depths of the post boxes.

  ‘Had a bit of trouble with mastitis in the boobs and stitches in the bum, but yeah they’re doing just fine now, ay,’ said Tom, eyes twinkling at Bella’s expression. ‘Feel like a cuppa?’ Tom moved to the steaming kettle set on the stove-top.

  Bella peered at the ceiling, the floor, anywhere else but at Tom. The last thing she wanted to think about was Shelley Lukey’s boobs and bum.

  ‘Here they are, Bella,’ said Janey as she appeared from the post office with a small bag in one hand and book to sign in the other. Angus had escaped from Janey’s arms to prowl the town once more. Janey noticed her husband reaching for some coffee mugs.

  ‘A cuppa, Tom. You’re a sweetie. There’s a bit of homemade fruit cake there under the glass cover. How about it, Bella? Will you have one too?’

  Bella took in the beaming couple in front of her: Janey with her laughing eyes and open face, Tom’s thickset frame and wild, longish black hair. They were the epitome of a country couple. Financially savvy and successful, passionate about the bush where they lived and worked, they welcomed with open arms any honest friend who came their way. They were always at the forefront of the community to lend a helping hand, and Bella knew from her father just how much they’d quietly assisted his sister Maggie since Hughie had passed away.

  Tom lifted a thick, bucket-like coffee cup in query, as Janey moved to uncover a massive fruit cake. Bella had to get out to Maggie’s – but how could she say no to these two, who were as much a part of her past in Burrindal as the valley at Tindarra?

  ‘Okay, I’ll have a quick one.’

  It was at least half an hour later before Bella could politely take her leave. But she was amazed at how much she had enjoyed sitting down with her old friends for a chat. She was also a little surprised that they hadn’t mentioned Warren. Other than Tom’s quick look at her bare left hand, not a word was said about the absent fiancé.

  She grabbed the postal bag containing Trin and Caro’s dung beetles and signed for them in the big red postal book. ‘I’ll be off then,’ she said. ‘Thanks. It was great to see you both. Give my regards to Shelley, and call in for a cuppa when you ride past next, Tom.’ Bella paused and then added, ‘And Janey, any mail for me, can you just send it out to Tindarra?’ She slowly moved towards the door.

  ‘Yeah, no probs. Give us a yell if you run into any trouble out there. Although you’ve got hunky old Will O’Hara nearby to lend you a hand.’ Janey’s wink was mischievous. Bella moved quickly out the screen door. She wondered if it was an inherent trait in female Lukeys: to lull you with sweetness then slam in a gut-wrencher, just when you thought you’d got away scot-free. If so, they needed to breed it out.

  Chapter 32

  The road narrowed from the wide, open rolling farmlands into the enclosed stretch of trees that hid Tindarra from the rest of the world. Stringy-barks stood tall beside wallowing wattle as the Australian bush wel
comed Bella to the Promised Land. Well, that’s what it always seemed like to her anyway.

  She imagined it was like a massive natural curtain call before the final act came on stage. Mile upon mile of scrub, winding around the southern side of the Tindarra River, which was a babbling brook at the moment but could rise to a thunderous and deadly torrent after big rains.

  Then finally the curtain drew back. The trees retreated and the farmlands began once again. And what farmlands they were. Snuggled in a tight-ended valley, rich alluvial river flats were laid out in front of her eyes, a carpet of emerald-green glinting in the sun. The river lazily wound its way through the middle of the valley, water dancing and leaping over rocks, flowing over tiny waterfalls, with dark rock pools on sluggish corners hiding trout of mammoth proportions.

  And above all this rich grazing land towered mountains of grey-blue bush interspersed with native pastures that provided valuable feed for stock and warmth and shelter for the cattle as the winter frost and snow crept in.

  Her aunt’s house appeared, settled snugly beside the gravel road. A single-storey, weatherboard farmhouse of indeterminate age, it had grown like topsy with bits added on and bits lopped off, and what remained had become a comfortable haven for Maggie in her old age. Poplars stood sentinel behind it, guarding the house from the Tindarra River as it made its way around the side of the cosy home. It was a good stone’s throw to the river from the back door, which stood high above the old riverbank slope. An impressive orchard ran down along the other side of the house. The deciduous trees provided thick-leaved shade in the long hot summer while bare branches allowed the sun to warm the house during freezing cold winters.

  For the first time in a very long time, Bella felt like she’d finally come to a place of sanctuary, a haven filled with peace; a space so removed from the hustle and bustle that had claimed her life for the past eight years, it looked like it had remained in a time capsule, just waiting for her to return. Tindarra held some of the best memories of her times with Patty, when fun, happiness and laughter were just a heartbeat away. Why had it taken her so long to come back?

  Because you ran away. The little voice inside her head was insistent. She had buried herself in the city, thinking that running was healing. It wasn’t. It just compounded the problem. She might have lost her best friend. She might have lost her lover. But then she’d done something infinitely worse. In moving to Melbourne, she’d lost herself.

  And now she hoped to change all that.

  Smoke puffed from the old house’s chimney, a generator hummed out of sight and lights glowed softly through the windows – all beckoning a traveller home. Past experience had taught her that the towering mountains guarding the Tindarra Valley slung out an aura that could not be repelled, a spirit that captivated and never let go. As she watched the early-evening mist slowly spiral and settle to blur the edges of everything in the valley, she saw the place where the love of family and friends could work magic on her heart.

  The garden gate clicked shut behind her, as Bella noticed Turbo was missing. He’d be getting on a bit now. She hadn’t seen him since he was a year or two old but Maggie always talked about him. A bitsa breed of border collie, labrador and goodness knows what else, Turbo’s genetic lineage was as footloose as his skulking around after the neighbours’ bitches in the deep dark of the night.

  ‘Must be out having a run with Maggie,’ muttered Bella. Turbs was usually the first to greet a visitor, according to her aunt. Bella wound her way up the path, dodging the old rose bushes that threatened to grab her with their sharp thorns, and mounted the worn wooden steps.

  The first thing she saw as she moved around the old verandah were boots. RM’s. They sat lazily on an upturned drench drum and until recently had been well polished but now retained a thin layer of dust. The creases in the leather were well dug in, where the top joint of the foot wiggled the toes.

  Not like her own. Bella looked down at her cracked footwear. She never greased, only shined – and it showed. She had splits in the leather that were making good headway into the tops of her boots, intent on sending her RM’s to boot heaven. For the past eight years they had been tossed in the cupboard, neglected.

  As she rounded the corner she realised the RM’s were connected to a pair of well-muscled denim-clad legs. The owner raised a bottle of VB in her direction.

  ‘Well, well, well. You’re back.’ The voice was hard, the tone uninviting. Eyes of brittle toffee coolly appraised her from the tips of her golden shoulder-length ringlets to the leather cracks at her feet.

  The man Bella had been trying not to think about for eight weeks sat on her Aunty Maggie’s verandah. Bella took in his handsome but cold face.

  ‘Hmm . . . I wonder how long you’ll last this time.’

  Her hackles rose but she stood her ground. He obviously wanted a fight. Well, he wasn’t going to get one. ‘As long as Maggie needs me,’ she replied, her rounded snub nose tilting an inch into the air. Slinging her arms tightly across her chest, she leaned against the house wall, searching for an air of indifference; trying to find coolness amid the heat of her emotions. Her heart was beating double-time and butterflies danced in her gut.

  Will uncoiled his lithe, well-proportioned body from the rocking chair and, with his foot, shoved another drench drum in her direction.

  ‘I suppose if you’re here, you might as well have a beer. Take a seat. Maggie’s down at the river making last-minute adjustments to the pump. So you –’ he pointed his bottle in her direction ‘– don’t have any trouble with it supplying the house and stock trough water while she’s away. She has such faith. Me? I don’t.’

  ‘Faith in what?’ asked Bella.

  ‘You.’ The voice was flat, the tone uncompromising.

  Bella was speechless. What right had he to judge?

  ‘Have a beer, Hells Bells.’

  ‘I’m fine, thank you. I don’t usually drink before five o’clock.’ Her voice sounded prim even to her own ears.

  She was rewarded with rich laughter. ‘Five o’clock?’ his voice was incredulous. ‘Since when?’

  Bella shrugged. ‘That’s just the way I do things now. I’ve changed.’ She knew she sounded defensive but she couldn’t help herself. Why did this man infuriate her so much? Why did she feel she had something to prove?

  Meanwhile, Will watched her, noting the way her arms crossed defensively in front of her enhanced the voluptuous bust that weeks ago had sent him crazy. He remembered the feel of that body, the taste of those breasts, and the flaming heat of passion that burned between them on Hugh’s Plain.

  He didn’t want to give in to his own need to hurt her now, to wield words that would cut her deeply – they just came tumbling from his mouth unbidden, like a toey horse not ready to be reined in. He sure as hell didn’t need her here, luring him. He’d had enough of that at Ben Bullen. He couldn’t get that afternoon out of his head; it had become a constant part of his dreams.

  Correction – it had become his nightmare for she was engaged to marry someone else.

  ‘Well, I do believe you have changed, Little Miss Chic City Girl. But I’ll tell you something else, sweetheart. It’s five o’clock somewhere in the world right now, so sit down and have a bloody drink.’

  Bella caught the echo of Macca. He’d said those same words to her a few weeks earlier – twenty-four hours before she’d lain naked on a remote, thickly grassed clearing, making love to this bloke.

  Will pushed hard against the drench drum with his foot and shoved a bottle at her. ‘You’d better remember just how we do things in the bush,’ he said, raising his beer bottle to mid-height in salute. ‘Otherwise you’re going to bloody well die of thirst before you hightail it back to that toffy city of yours and your fi-an-cé.’

  She was fighting the urge to deck him with the beer bottle he’d so ungraciously thrust into her hand, when Maggie’s voice rang out.

  ‘Bella, my love, you’re here!’ her aunt said, lumbering up the stairs
near the back door. ‘How good to see you. Did Caro catch you about the dung beetles? She called here first. And Will! I’ll get your bolt-cutters in a sec. You’ll take those beetles up to Ben Bullen, won’t you, Will, and release them for Trin? You’re heading up that way tomorrow, yes? It’ll save Bella from doing it, there’s a boy. And thanks so much for getting Bella a drink. You must be tired and thirsty, my pet.’

  Maggie bustled onto the verandah, Turbo barking excitedly at her heels. ‘Isn’t it good you’ve got such a capable man down the road to look after you while I’m away cruising the seven seas!’ Maggie stopped behind Will’s chair to ruffle his red-gold hair.

  ‘Yes, she’s really lucky, Maggie,’ said Will flatly. He stood and offered her his seat.

  ‘You’re a love, thank you so much.’ She patted the drench drum beside her chair, the same one Will had offered Bella earlier, and beckoned to her niece. ‘Now sit down here, sweetheart, and tell me all about your drive up. Are your mum and dad excited about our trip? I haven’t thought of anything else for weeks!’

  While Will leaned against a verandah pole, peeling at little flakes of creamy paint, Bella sat down on the drum and tried to answer her aunt’s questions politely. The whole time very aware of the brooding man listening intently to her words.

  ‘So, what did old Wozza say when you told him you were disappearing up here for six months?’ Will asked as he shut the gate behind Maggie’s departing Range Rover the next afternoon.

  ‘Nothing,’ muttered Bella, moving back towards the house.

  ‘Beg your pardon?’ Will jogged to catch up.

  ‘Nothing,’ she repeated.