by Jennie Jones
She left the shirt undone. If she got too warm while feeding the dogs—and throwing balls and running around with them—she’d peel if off, tie it by the arms around her waist and work in the white T-shirt she was also wearing.
She made her way outside onto the iron-covered wooden verandah and paused, as she did every morning. She took a few deep breaths, enjoying the cool air sliding into her lungs. It was 5.35 am. The sun was up, just, and there was peace in the ruggedness of the land around her.
She’d fenced off a good-sized area around the house and even had a lawn—of sorts. It was watered from a bore, when she remembered to switch it on. Fortunately, the house was close enough to town to be on mains water, although she had filtered water in large cooler bottles for drinking.
She put a hand over her eyes to cut the orangey glare of the rising sun. The landscape was rugged, red, and unexpectedly lovely. It almost looked fragile in its vastness and yet it had survived through the centuries, changing as it was supposed to change or resettling when devastation hit, like bushfires, or storms that created craters of muddy red water and closed tracks and roads.
When you lived in the semi-arid, flat outback, every little change in the scenery lightened the heart. A bump on the landscape on her right was known as Tin Pot Hill. A hundred years ago, a prospector called Potts and his family camped there, looking for gold. The hill turned up nothing and the family were known as Tin Pots because that’s all they were left with: their panning and cooking tins. Another substantial rise in the distance could be deemed an actual hill as it took a good hour to climb to the top. But it was known fondly as Sunset Mountain.
Her home in the outback. She’d learned to live with what she had, as did everyone out here, especially the farmers. She had friends, she had her animals. Now, she had her daughter too. The only thing she was missing—but not lacking—was a man, husband, boyfriend figure. Did she want that?
She thought back to last night and her fear about doubting herself for possibly the third time in her life. Jack—and how she still wondered if she’d been wrong to refuse to talk to him after what had happened in Kalgirri.
Why take Luke’s role out here? Rachel hadn’t been able to tell her, or maybe didn’t want to for some reason.
She’d have to meet him. Today, probably, since she hoped to persuade Frances to go into town with her. It was Sunday and the café didn’t open until 9 am. She’d like to get there early, before Rosita started work, so she could show Frances around, just the two of them. She’d like to make a start on showing her around town too, and she also needed to judge people’s reactions and shield her daughter from any gossip or wide-eyed stares. Nobody but her closest friends and her sister knew the truth, but she’d told people that her daughter was coming to live with her and had blown off any forceful inquisitiveness. It was her business, and Franca’s—Frances’s.
She turned from the rising sun and pulled her work gloves from the back pocket of her jeans.
It had taken Jack nearly a month to make contact after their date in Kalgirri. He’d taken her to dinner, left her, then suddenly, a few weeks after, decided he’d been wrong and ought to get in touch?
She hadn’t responded to any of his telephone messages or texts back then. Eventually, he must have given up, or forgotten about her. Then at the start of summer, three months ago, he’d turned up in Mt Maria. He’d been working with Luke on Rachel’s case and Jax hadn’t been keen on communicating with him, especially as she’d just discovered that her daughter needed her. She’d still been harbouring some anger too, no matter how much she’d have preferred to forget how she’d felt about him and how he’d treated her. Yes, he’d tried to apologise and said he wanted to explain. She hadn’t let him. She hadn’t allowed a situation where they were alone, always sticking to the busy café, or making sure others were around.
He’d left after a few days, going back to his job.
Now here he was again. Turning up at a time when she could do without the reminder of how he’d made her feel.
Even if she wanted a man in her life, it could never be Jack. He’d break her heart and then she’d have to crawl up to the surface of disappointment again and she didn’t have time. Not when Frances needed all her energy and commitment. ‘It’s a beautiful name for a beautiful woman,’ he’d said that night in the hotel in Kalgirri. ‘I’d like to call you Isabelle, if you’ll let me.’
Why had she allowed people to change her name in the first place?
Because her life had altered. Because she was a bit of a tomboy—a necessity of her lifestyle.
Because Michael Fellows had called her Isabelle.
The first time Jax doubted her actions and the reasons for them was when she reluctantly agreed to hand Franca over to Michael as soon as the baby was born. She hadn’t felt she’d had a choice. She’d been so young and nobody had listened to what she wanted to say, as though she didn’t deserve an opinion. She’d been coerced. Apparently, Michael had seduced her—her mother’s words. But she didn’t want to think about her responses to that—not while Frances currently slept in her house.
She glanced through the open laundry door. Still no sound. Frances would probably be asleep for another few hours. She doubted any thirteen-year-old liked waking up early, let alone getting up. Her sister, Rosie, certainly hadn’t liked it and Jax had been mother to Rosie for all these years, even though she was only six years older.
She liked to think her common sense and get-on-with-it attitude had simply honed her already strong work ethic and hadn’t hardened her, but some of those years had been difficult. Her life had changed at seventeen when she’d had Franca, and then again at twenty-two when her mother had died and she had sole responsibility for Rosita.
She returned her gaze to the vista in front of her, but was still absorbed with those doubts. The second time she’d doubted her actions and the decisions she’d made was five years ago: the day she decided to stay in Mt Maria after being given the opportunity to leave. She’d moved herself and Rosie out here three years earlier; she’d had practically nothing, so had taken a job as a waitress in the Mt Maria café, which also offered accommodation above the kitchen. It was that or take up residence on the street. She and Rosie had lived in a small unit in Geelong, close to Deakin University. It was a place Jax had always known she’d never be a part of, even though she’d wanted to study cooking and catering, and the thought of Rosie going to uni made her smile ruefully. It had been hard enough to get Rosie to finish Year 10 at school. But Jax had lost her admin clerk job and they’d been told to get out of the unit she hadn’t been able to afford the rent for.
The Mt Maria café was a dirty little place back then and only the hard-core miners who worked in any of the eleven mines in the area would use it. The townspeople didn’t set a foot inside the door. But the town had grown and prospered because of those mines. Jax had worked hard and saved hard, and then, unbelievably, she’d won two hundred thousand dollars in the lottery. It made her want to laugh out loud every time she thought about it. Her own gold mine. She could have moved them back to Victoria and put a hefty deposit on a decent flat. Maybe have got a good job as a waitress and eventually opened up her own catering business. But instead of all that, she’d made the decision to stay in Mt Maria, in the back of beyond, buying the café and the farmhouse. Much to Rosita’s despair.
She ran an eye over the shrubs bordering her garden and pictured the pretty flowers she’d wanted but didn’t have time to tend. Hardy shrubs and herbs were easier. She liked pretty things, she liked wearing pink clothes and pink lipstick, but that was all she granted herself. Everything else around her was useful, practical and necessary, although she had given herself a little leeway in the countrified decoration of her house.
Some of the dogs barked, quickly joined by others, reminding her they were hungry and ready to fetch any ball she cared to throw.
She still had Jack on her mind. Had she been wrong in not giving him the chance to explain hi
s behaviour that night in Kalgirri? Did she want to know why he’d treated her in that manner? She hadn’t taken him for that sort, but she’d seen it with her own eyes. How could any woman forgive a man for doing what he’d done?
She gave one last glance through the laundry door and down the hallway to her daughter’s closed bedroom door, making a wish that today they’d begin to get to know each other. Then she made her way to the fenced paddock where twenty lost, abandoned dogs awaited her attention.
Frances kept her eyelids closed but her eyes were moving behind the lids, darting left and right as though she were watching an action movie and had to keep looking all over the big screen at everything going on, in case she missed a bit of the plot and guessed the ending wrong. Crime and murder stuff was her favourite. Although now, she felt like she was part of a crime. She felt like she was the crime itself.
She heard a door open somewhere down the hallway and opened her eyes. It was still semi-dark. She’d locked the window last night like she had said to do and she’d pulled the curtains closed too. Even though the window and her door were shut, she’d worried about stuff creeping in. Thoughts and all that. She wished now that she’d packed more things to bring, but she’d been in a hurry. She hadn’t wanted to take anything from her—Linda—but hadn’t known what she—the real mother—would have in the farmhouse, so she’d just flung stuff into her suitcase. Why it was called a farmhouse she didn’t know. It was old and a bit crumbly and there were no cows or sheep or anything.
She hadn’t known much at all really. She’d only half listened to what the counsellors and Wendy the social worker had said and lots of that information just washed over her. She hadn’t wanted to hear it. She’d just wanted to get out of Linda’s house. Then she’d been taken out. It hadn’t been the relief she’d expected but she couldn’t figure out why. Probably because she’d been scared and all that crap.
Her tummy rumbled.
Dogs barked and she shot a look at the curtained window, then shoved the blankets back—real sheets and blankets, no doona. Weird. Like the real mother was weird.
She got up and peered behind the edge of a curtain. The sun was nearly up.
There she was, walking across a field in her pink wellies, heading for the dogs.
Frances had never had a dog because Linda didn’t like all the dog hair, but she’d had a budgie. It died when it was two and she hadn’t got another one. Linda said it was too much trouble. Why, she didn’t know, because Linda had never looked after the budgie. Linda never even looked at it except to tell Frances the cage stank—which it never had.
Her tummy rumbled again. She figured she would be out there with the dogs for ages. A little white and brown one was jumping at her legs, getting as high as her waist even. How did it get along with the others? The others were huge and there were so many of them.
She brought her focus to the glass of the window and the square panes and caught sight of her reflection. Her stomach churned.
She rubbed a hand over the rectangular pane of glass as though rubbing out her image. She looked a bit like her, the real mother. She hadn’t expected that. She didn’t want to be just as weird as her. She was already weird enough, thanks very much, universe.
She turned to get dressed. She’d better get something to eat then clean up before she came back. She’d find bread or cereal or something. She couldn’t pull the gluten thing again, not after she’d eaten all that pasta last night. It was quite good spag bol, actually, but she’d only eaten a big bowlful so she didn’t have to answer the stupid questions she kept firing about food things and how they affected people.
She’d lied and said she sometimes got sick when she ate pasta and stuff, but not always.
The mother had just looked at her, and smiled, and said, ‘Okay’.
How many lies was she going to have to tell? Good job she had a brain. She’d figure it out. No way would she forget all the lies she was telling.
But something raw jagged at her conscience about it.
One thing she hadn’t thought about while not thinking about what would happen once she got here, was how she was supposed to behave and what would be expected of her. She’d presumed the usual … But that hadn’t happened.
After she’d finished eating last night she’d started to do the washing up.
‘Let me do that,’ she had said. ‘It’s your first day here.’
Not do the clean-up after dinner? She always did the clean-up.
She’d squeezed out the dishcloth then folded it neatly and placed it on the draining board, squared up to the corners. There was no plastic holder for the washing up brush and pot scourer so she hoped she’d done the right thing. Her heartbeat had picked up for a second.
The mother didn’t appear to notice what Frances had done. Perhaps she didn’t care how the dishcloth was folded. Totally weird.
Jack tried not to look in the mirror unless he was shaving or checking whether or not he needed a haircut. But the reflection looking back at him in the full-length mirror glued to the back of the door in the studio flat above the newsagent’s was one of a man he hadn’t seen in a long time.
The thirty-four-year-old no longer looked like the young man he remembered being—one with a brighter sparkle in his eye and a look of expectancy on his face.
Is this what Jax saw? A guy on the verge of boredom. Because that’s what he saw.
He frowned at his reflection. Back in blue. It was a bit like walking on land again after being at sea on a decade-long voyage. Thick cotton trousers, police issue boots. Short-sleeved shirt, dark blue epaulettes on his shoulders, sporting three silver stripes and a crown.
He didn’t have his kit with him—he’d get that in about five minutes’ time. He’d secured his Glock in the armoury yesterday and he’d only get it back when he was on shift. Odd sensation, being without it, although it had never worried him before. He’d had to hand it in at the end of most shifts anyway, apart from when he’d been on special ops—which had been often.
He checked his watch: 6.30 am. His first shift started at eight. Actually, his shift had started at 1 am when he’d taken charge of the station mobile.
He slipped it into his shirt pocket in case he forgot it. That would give Jimmy, the Customer Service Officer, reason to complain before Jack had even hit his desk.
He’d hung around the station last night, getting a feel of the place, going through paperwork and reading up on the goings-on in town. Then he’d seen his last two officers safely off shift just after one, and had taken his first charge of locking up. This morning, he was OIC. Ex-detective.
He could picture the faces of his detective buddies if they could see him now. But he had to admit, there was something kind of kinky about wearing the uniform. He thought perhaps he looked pretty good in it. Bold. Invincible. In charge. He did have a gun after all—or he would have in five minutes’ time. And he was certainly in charge, but the uniform? All he had to do was get used to wearing it.
‘Senior Sergeant Jack Maxwell,’ he said to his reflection, with a convivial community-copper’s smile. ‘How’s it going?’
He winced, unused to being over-friendly and more comfortable being the grim-faced detective on a discovery trail, but it was best if he got used to introducing himself. ‘Senior Sergeant Jack Maxwell,’ he said to the mirror again, with more conviction this time. ‘How’s it going—oh, for Christ’s sake!’ He yanked his police baseball-style cap off the only table in the small space, picked up his keys and made his way out of the flat.
‘Morning, Mr Bernardo,’ he said to the newsagent as he came into the shop from the stairwell. Fortunately, there was a fire escape set of stairs out the back and adjoined to his flat so he could come and go without having to go through the shop, but this morning he thought it best if he said his good-mornings and hellos up-front. ‘Early start.’
‘I’m used to it,’ Mr Bernardo said. ‘Have a good day, Sergeant.’
Outside, Jack inhaled the morning.
It was quiet on High Street, the businesses not awake yet—although everything opened, Sunday or not.
At the far southern end of High Street the car park was cordoned off with concrete barriers and wire fencing, since there was heavy machinery and equipment in use. The bitumen had already been dug up. Beyond that, the last building in town was the town hall, a large house, taken over some years ago by the shire. It made a nice picture, with its shining windows and metal roof and the lush garden at the front that Jack felt sure the Agatha Girls had a hand in.
Breakers, the pub and hotel across the road, was closed, but it too would be open around nine and there were always enough of the surrounding mine-site workers in town each day to make it an occasionally lively place.
He spotted the arrest wagon parked outside the station, behind a beat-up sedan, where two officers were talking to a guy who was throwing his arms in the air in some amazement.
Jack had his mind on what might be happening, and forgot to look at the closed café as he crossed the alleyway and passed it.
‘Problem?’ he asked when he got to his officers.
‘Oh, hi, Ja—eh—Sarge,’ Senior Constable Donna Murray said. ‘This is Sergeant Louie Lee,’ she said, indicating the lanky officer with a gelled hairdo standing next to her.
Jack nodded. ‘I remember Louie. How are you?’ He didn’t give Louie—recently promoted from first constable—time to answer. He hadn’t liked the man when he first met him, and something about that gelled, stick-up hairdo irritated him. Luke had told him Louie was a bit of a pain in the arse. A bit of a wise-boy. Always chasing whichever female backpacker had come to town to work at the pub, or the motel at the end of High Street.
‘What’s the issue?’ he asked Donna.
‘Stopped this guy just now, suspecting DUI but he’s blown clear.’
‘And?’
‘This was sitting on the front passenger seat.’ She held out her hand and showed him a small glass pipe—the kind used for smoking cannabis.