by Jennie Jones
The Department of Child Protection had done background checks on everyone from her deceased mother to Rosie. They’d even gone into Jax’s health records. They knew she was the biological mother, but they still had to screen her thoroughly. The assessment had been fast-tracked due to Linda wanting to get rid of Frances and Michael already having had a punch-up with a man who accused him of being a pervert. Franca had been hurt in that altercation.
Jax had also undergone around twenty hours of preparation training. It had been different for her though, because she was the real mother, and yet she knew nothing about the child.
She jumped when Frances suddenly appeared at the door.
‘So what time am I going to the stables?’
‘Billy is probably on his way.’ Jax stood, wiping her hands down the front of her jeans and smiling. ‘Have you thought more about the language you want to learn?’ They’d sat at the table last night after dinner, having an almost one-sided conversation about the schooling and what was expected of both of them. Jax was waiting on a student coordinator to contact her, since Frances had been enrolled late in the term, and they had to make decisions and set a timetable for the subjects Year 7s would be studying.
Frances gave a throwaway shrug, looking out the window behind Jax. ‘Italian, I suppose.’
‘Okay.’ They hadn’t covered any more ground on the conversation they’d had regarding Michael, but Jax felt intuitively that the matter would come up again when Frances was ready to ask a question or make a comment. It was a big, painful subject for her, and there was more than one new and frightening issue her daughter was having to deal with. School. Who she was. Living a whole new lifestyle.
‘I’ve got our timetable sorted out.’ Jax had filled out the forms and jotted down notes for a timetable for all the subjects Frances would be studying for a minimum of twenty-four hours a week. ‘Shame Spanish isn’t a choice,’ she said, hoping that a gentle reference to Frances’s heritage might help, should Frances want to ask a question about it. ‘I speak a little Spanish but I’m not fluent, although your great grandmother was.’
Frances blushed in acute embarrassment as though the thought of being a family member simply reminded her of everything that had happened to her. ‘Italian’s fine. I’ll go wait on the front verandah.’
‘Don’t go off without saying goodbye!’ Jax called after her. ‘I’ve got some things I want Billy to take to Solomon.’ Solomon often helped her with the big dogs that were so fearful and strung up that Jax couldn’t handle them on her own without risk, and she thanked him by making homemade meals every now and again, freezing them so he could have them whenever he wanted.
She heard the front door open and slam closed.
She put the school handbook down and sat back in her desk chair, reflecting on the tentative and highly strung relationship with her daughter.
They said good morning, goodnight, thank you, no thank you. They ate all meals together in the kitchen. Jax cooked and Frances cleaned up. Mostly in silence, unless Jax was throwing comments around, attempting to bridge the seemingly eternal gap. They’d been together in the house for nearly a week. They were communicating, but they weren’t yet living together comfortably. Was this how it was going to work? Slowly. Delicately. Would they get to the point where they laughed together about something?
Jax had broached the idea of bringing the dogs in at night and had been amazed when Frances shrugged and mumbled something about Bella being funny.
Tonight, she’d let Bella inside. Frances wouldn’t be frightened of one little Jack Russell. They might laugh together over Bella’s antics. They might get closer, as mother and daughter or even just as two females in the one house. Tomorrow she’d suggest walking Kirby and Bella. The next day she’d add Winston into the mix. By the end of next week, they might have more to chat about. They might feel more companionable, if not totally comfortable, and find themselves in a position where they were able to talk about each of the emotional issues Frances faced.
One day at a time. One dog at a time.
She glanced through the bedroom-cum-office door at Frances’s bedroom opposite. The door was open, and she saw the bed, perfectly made with two cushions plumped on top. She’d expected loud music but there was never a sound from Frances’s room when she was in it.
She always cleaned up after herself too, which made Jax proud. She’d been prepared for teenage mess, with days’ old toast under the bed and empty biscuit or sweet wrappers overflowing in the wastepaper basket. But no. Frances was the tidiest little thing ever.
She halted as a thought tripped her up. Was that normal?
‘How come you’ve changed my partner?’ Donna asked as she sat at Will’s desk, doing something on the cop shop’s Twitter account.
Jack continued reading the report Davidson had filed for the DUI without a licence who’d been in custody and hadn’t liked it—requiring an overnight stay. There’d been a scuffle when he was given a meat pie for dinner and one of Jack’s younger officers had copped a backhander and a cup of hot tea. The offender was also wanted in his home town, suspected of animal theft: two cats—and a ram, for some unknown reason—so today he’d been extradited back to Boondurra. As it was 470 kilometres north, this had been a joint effort with two of Jack’s officers driving him halfway northward bound and two from the Boondurra station driving the same distance southward. He’d been handed over on the roadside with nothing around but camels and red dirt.
‘Because I want Louie to work with those officers who haven’t got as much experience as you,’ he told Donna.
He surreptitiously opened up Twitter and searched for @MtMariaPD.
‘You’re not playing look after the woman cop here, are you?’ Donna asked.
‘You can handle yourself, Murray,’ he told her, reading her tweet. ‘If you couldn’t, I’d be having a word with you.’
1 male DUI ex 08. No licence. Attacking pc with hot tea + meat pie. Disorderly! #sleepover #datewithamagistrate #flyingtoprison
Nice one. It’d be fun, handling the Twitter account. He wondered if he could guess the password.
‘So why the changes?’ she asked, shutting down the tab on Will’s computer and picking up the roster sheets.
‘Because Louie’s role is to offer support and learning curves to others. He’s sergeant now.’
She flipped a page, a frown forming.
It wasn’t an ideal situation not having more female officers, but circumstances dictated and it was still, generally, a male-dominated workforce. One female sergeant who’d been here for nearly two years had become pregnant and retired from the force. Johnson and Edwards couldn’t hack the remoteness so had been looking for placements in the city and as Johnson’s girlfriend was also an officer, she’d wanted out too and had left just before Jack got here.
He leaned back in his chair. ‘I’ve put Louie with Johnson, and Edwards with Eddie.’ Pip Edwards and Mike Edwards—no relation, but due to the same surname, Pip was known as Edwards and Mike, the newer officer, as Eddie. ‘We’ve got two female officers scheduled for a tenure here. As soon as Johnson and Edwards piss off.’ That was happening in two months’ time.
‘Good,’ Donna said. ‘I need some female company. Breaking a nail on the job is a hazard you guys don’t seem to appreciate.’
Jack smiled. ‘Donna,’ he said when she got up and made to leave. ‘Why didn’t you go for Sergeant?’
She gave him a shrug. ‘I need to be in Sydney eventually, close to where my mother lives, so I have childcare backup. I didn’t want to have to agree to moving to any old place.’
‘You’d likely have got the promotion,’ he pressed. ‘One, you’ve been on the force six years longer than slick-haired Louie.’ That dragged a smile out of her. ‘Two, you’ve already had acting sergeant experience and three, you’re female. So go apply.’
‘Jack,’ she said, standing tall, shoulders squared. ‘You don’t know what it’s like to be a single parent. Whatever I end up
doing, I have to think about Clarrie first and foremost.’
‘You’ve got it about face,’ Jack said, leaning back in his chair and swivelling it a little. ‘I don’t know what it’s like to have a dependant but I do know that if it was me, the more I could progress myself, my career and my income, the better off any child I had would be.’
She frowned at what she obviously thought was interference, but he hadn’t finished.
‘I understand it must be difficult getting the childcare thing sorted,’ he said. ‘Especially when it’s busy and when we’re all doing overtime. But if you were to take a nine-to-five job you wouldn’t be doing right by yourself. Your soul would die in a desk job, Murray. To my way of thinking, if you’re not doing the best for yourself, how can you possibly be doing the ultimate best for your kid?’
‘Sermon over?’ she asked, but didn’t wait for an answer. She spun on the tiled floor with a squeak of her rubber boots and headed for the door.
Jack sighed. ‘Wait!’
She turned.
‘I’m just telling you what I see. I’m not telling you how to live your life; I want the best for you.’ It was different for most guys, he knew that, but he really wanted Donna to get what she deserved, what she was more than capable of handling. Sergeant rank would only be the start; one day Donna Murray would make Superintendent, he was sure of it.
But maybe he wasn’t the one who should be pointing out to her what he felt would work for her in the long term. He was a single guy. A man responsible only for himself. No kid in the equation. He could basically do as he pleased, within reason.
So what was it like to fight to get the best for yourself when the end result was the betterment of not only yourself, but also any dependants? How much courage did it take to push yourself, and maybe your kid or kids, through the tough times so you could get to the rosier times?
He had no idea, and maybe he should get off the subject. ‘Donna, I don’t want to cross any lines here but I’d like to ask you something about Jax. It’s personal so you don’t have to answer.’
‘Interesting,’ she said, relaxing a bit and even producing a smile.
Jack cleared his throat. ‘Is there another man on the scene?’
She looked at him steadily for a few seconds, and he waited throughout the appraisal. ‘Well …’ She drew the word out and Jack couldn’t decide if it was because she was taking the piss or wondering how to tell him the truth.
‘She does have a lot to do with Mr Bernardo.’
‘The newsagent?’
‘She makes sure the café ladies make him a ham and tomato sandwich on rye every day, and has earned his undying love because she doesn’t charge him for it. He’s a lonely widower.’
He was also aged seventy-three. ‘I’m serious, Donna. I need to know.’
‘Why?’ she asked. ‘What will you do about it?’
‘That would be between me and Jax.’
‘What makes you think there’s a man on the scene? Not that I’m saying either way if there is or isn’t.’
‘Forget it.’ He picked up a file on the youth centre where he’d be giving a drugs talk to the kids next week.
‘Jack.’ Donna walked forwards, right to the end of his desk. ‘I’ve told her she ought to tell you.’ She wasn’t taking the piss now.
His gut clenched. Tell him about Solomon? About Frances? Or tell him she really wasn’t interested in him?
‘Frances?’ he asked, throwing his first guess into the ring.
Donna nodded. ‘Keep asking her.’
‘I’m pissing her off.’
‘So keep pissing her off. Oh, and by the way, Badass Billy is up to no good. Saw him hanging around Frances. Not sure what they were up to, but something didn’t make sense. Frances told me he was getting her brochures from the youth centre, but Jax said this morning that Frances didn’t have any brochures. Plus, Billy said he’s shifting gear.’
Jack took it all in. ‘You don’t know what?’
Donna shook her head. ‘He might have been exaggerating for Frances’s sake. Showing off. He does that a lot.’
Or it was true, and he’d been shifting this ‘gear’ for his brothers. But what gear?
‘Apparently,’ Donna continued, ‘Billy’s picking Frances up today. She’s going for a visit to the stables.’
‘You think we need to talk to her? Quietly.’
‘Billy’s a young fool at the moment, Jack, and I didn’t get a sense he’s doing something illegal—not that he knows of anyway. And I don’t want to worry Jax; she’s got enough on her plate. But I was thinking, maybe you could have a word with Frances.’
‘Me?’
‘Yeah. You. It’s a good way to get to know her.’ She smiled. ‘Might get yourself on the right side of Frances’s mother too.’
Donna left the office and Jack was left with his thoughts. Frances. He didn’t even know her surname. Was it Brown?
He glanced at his computer screen. Jax was from Victoria, around the Geelong area. The likelihood was that Frances had been born there. Easy to run a check, but he could only do that if he thought Jax was in harm’s way and he didn’t know that for sure. If she was in some danger from Frances’s father, Donna would have told him, as a cop. There was no reason to intrude on Jax’s past just because the Baxter boys might be causing trouble on her land, plus, everything he did officially was traceable. Running personal checks was a no-go area resulting in discipline, and maybe even dismissal. But how he wanted to do it …
Had she given up Frances for adoption? In which case why would she suddenly have responsibility of the girl? Where were the adoptive parents? Or had the kid been in foster care all these years?
‘Christ,’ he muttered. He could find out within minutes if he ran a check. Or if he called an old mate who now worked in child protection.
Twelve
Frances walked at Billy’s side towards the dogs. The mother was inside, getting some frozen meals and homemade cookies for Billy to take to Solomon, so they had a few minutes before they left for the stables, and Billy wanted to see the dogs.
‘Are you still shifting gear for people?’ she asked Billy.
He nodded. ‘My brother said he needs money.’
‘For drugs?’ Billy’s brothers were bad. Auntie Rosie said so. She told Frances to stay away from them although she said it with a smug grin, like she was pretending to be the older, knowledgeable woman when really she was just some party-loving dipstick. You could always see her bra for a start. Either the straps beneath the sleeveless, tight T-shirts she wore, or the colour of it would be dead obvious beneath a thin white blouse. It was disgraceful. Although she always looked kind of pretty, in a big-headed, look-at-me way. Not that Frances would ever say that out loud, but she did wonder if she might want to wear bright, pretty, lacy-type bras when she got a bust. Her chest tightened and she had to hold herself back from looking down at her non-existent boobs. What would it be like to have them? Auntie Rosie’s and the mother’s boobs weren’t huge, but they were pronounced. It was obvious they had them.
‘He said he’s going to be spending money,’ Billy answered, thankfully making her forget about her flat chest.
‘On what?’
Billy shrugged. ‘Don’t know. The pokie machines?’
‘Have they got any in Mt Maria?’
‘Well I don’t know, do I?’
‘You’re eighteen. Haven’t you been into the hotel?’
‘They might have some somewhere else, mightn’t they?’ Billy argued. ‘Somewhere I haven’t been.’
Somewhere Billy hadn’t been had to be at least 300 kilometres away. Could his brothers afford the petrol to drive that far just to find a pokie machine?
‘He said he was going to be a gambler,’ Billy said. ‘I’m just coming to the natural conclusion.’
Frances didn’t think spending money on non-existent slot machines was a natural conclusion but she kept that to herself too.
‘Which brother?’ she as
ked.
‘Damon. The eldest.’
‘What about your other brother?’
‘Robert will do whatever Damon does, except he’ll try to do it better.’
‘And you?’ A current of worry for him ran through her.
Billy didn’t answer. ‘Hey, why don’t we take that big bull of a dog out for a walk?’
Frances turned her head and another prickle ran down her spine—one of fright. ‘Winston? No way.’
Billy strode to the gate and Frances tripped after him, unsure if she was going to do anything with the dogs if Billy suggested it, or if she was running to catch up with him because she thought he might need saving. Not that she could do anything but scream if the dogs attacked him.
‘Be careful,’ she told him when they got to the fence.
‘Don’t you like animals?’ he asked.
‘I don’t really know any. Do you?’ He must do since he worked for Solomon and tended all those horses.
‘I don’t care about them either way,’ Billy said, using his badass voice.
Frances lifted her chin to look over the fence, keeping her body away from it. ‘He’s looking at you.’ But it didn’t look like Winston was eyeing Billy in order to decide the best way to eat him. His eyes were calm. He was panting like he was taking things easy and just having a rest.
‘Let’s take him out.’
‘No!’ Frances leapt back. ‘Billy, no.’ The dog had to weigh nearly a tonne.
‘You’ve got to grow up, little girl,’ he said, opening the gate but not enough to let all the dogs, who were now crowding the gate, room to get out. He kept his legs between the slightly opened gate and the fence post. ‘Come on, big boy,’ he said to Winston.
Frances was shaking now. She shot a look towards the house. ‘Billy—don’t. I don’t think my—I don’t think she will like it.’
‘Since when did I care what others think?’