by Cathryn Hein
Em turned at the sound of Miss Muffet’s nails clicking across the slate floor and her smile faded. Arthritis had weakened her beloved Smithfield collie’s gait and made it stiff, particularly in the mornings. Muffy now slept inside; her aging body eased by the warmth of a freestanding slow-combustion wood heater and sheepskin-lined bed. The dog pressed her fluffy black-and-tan side against Em’s calf, before looking up with dark, still-bright eyes.
‘Hello, Miss Muffet, who sits on her tuffet.’ Em caressed the dog’s silky ears.
Muffy pressed her nose into Em’s palm, earning her another loving pat. The smile returned in full to Em’s face, her heart warming. She straightened, only to yelp as a huge grey hairy head banged against the window. Her fingers fanned in fright. The mug slid from her grip and shattered on the stone floor, only just missing Muffy who raced to the window with her hackles up. Her sharp barks stabbed the silence and jangled Em’s nerves.
Em lifted her flared fingers to her chest and stared at the window. ‘How the hell?’ But the answer to that question would have to wait.
Heart still thumping, she grimaced at the snotty smear greasing the window where the donkey’s nose had impacted, called Muffy back and crouched to stroke her, the contact as much for herself as the dog. Muffy trembled a little under her hand, although Em suspected it was more from outrage at being ambushed by her nemesis than shock.
‘Shh. It was just Kicki.’
Em rose to fetch paper towels before the spilled tea leaked into the cream shag rug beneath her desk. She loved that rug. There was nothing quite as lovely as squelching her bare feet through the thick pile when she sat down to calligraphy work, her toes curling to tug the threads like summer grass.
She tsked as she cleaned, casting Muffy annoyed glances. She adored her but the dog shed hair in swathes and no matter how many times Em swept or mopped, Muffy’s presence crept into every corner, forming hair-webs and spidery knots. When she’d finished with the floor, Em pulled on her boots and trudged outside to hunt down her errant donkeys. If Kicki was out, then his girlfriend Cutie wouldn’t be far behind.
The porch timbers creaked under her step, as though moaning about the cold. She breathed out, the puff of air turning opaque in the frigid early morning. The weather bureau had forecast another day of scattered showers, perhaps rain periods, and a maximum in the low teens. Normal for June in this south-eastern corner of South Australia.
The chooks and Chelsea the Indian runner duck were out foraging, picking at plants and slumberous insects and grubs; flashes of golden-brown and white among the damp, drooping foliage of Em’s vegetable garden. She’d unlatched their coop when she’d let Muffy out to conduct her secretive morning ablutions. Since puppyhood, Muffy hated being watched while going to the loo. She’d wander off to who knew where, leaving not a trace. On the rare occasion Em accidentally stumbled across the dog, Muffy regarded her so reproachfully that Em quickly backed away, muttering apologies.
The donkeys were hock-high in Em’s vegetable garden, delicately probing a juicy row of month-old broad beans. Thick mops of hair covered their foreheads and damp matted their white underbellies where their winter coats hung long and dense. Kicki’s fluffy grey ears twirled at her approach. He raised his head, pale bean roots protruding from his lips. Blinking sweetly, he nudged the dark brown cheek of his girlfriend, Cutie, before sucking the roots into his mouth and resuming his snuffle around the plants. A pair of innocent-looking equines with very naughty minds.
Muffy circled, her shoulders hunched, watching carefully for the turn of rump that foreshadowed a swift kick. No matter how Em tried to condition him, Kicki refused to soften his attitude. In his eyes, dogs were wolves with smaller teeth and that was that. Not a bad thing when it came to keeping strays off the property, but Em could have done without the vet bills from Muffy’s injuries.
She whistled Muffy back and stalked towards them with thin lips, only for Kicki to bustle straight through the broccoli and early potatoes, dragging Cutie with him, and leaving squashed plants and hoof marks in their wake.
Em rolled her eyes and decided to leave them to it. When Kicki was in one of his ‘you can’t catch me’ moods it was better to walk away. Besides, she could never begrudge his fun, not after all he and Cutie had suffered, and she still had the mystery of how they escaped their paddock to solve.
She headed out of the garden and into the open, pausing to take stock of the sky, until her gaze was drawn, like so often, upwards, to the majestic, ever-powerful presence of Rocking Horse Hill.
The volcano rose steeply almost a hundred metres from the ground, ending in rocky peaks that then plunged downward into a deep, flinty crater. It was one of the youngest in a chain of peaks that ran through western Victoria into South Australia, spattering the land like a broken string of misshapen pearls. Unlike most other volcanoes, which were spectacularly warped and eroded, Em’s hill was an almost perfect trapezium, as if plucked from a child’s drawing.
There was once a time when the Wallace family owned the crater itself, when they owned vast tracts of this windswept land – the forests and stone quarries, farms and industry, from Levenham, only twelve kilometres to the north, to Port Andrews in the south and points east and west. In those days Rocking Horse Hill was still known as Mount Stanislaus. Officially, it still was. But after the war, there had been a hard-fought debate to change the name, which had prompted the frustrated editor of the local Levenham Leader to dub it something so childish no one could argue against the original title. But the nickname had stuck. To outsiders the volcano was named after some obscure relative of Charlotte of Mecklenburg-Strelitz, King George III’s wife. To locals it would always be Rocking Horse Hill.
For Em it would always mean home.
‘Can you believe it? Digby engaged!’ Em grinned at her two friends who, knowing how territorial Em could get when she was cooking, were perched in their usual positions on the opposite side of the breakfast bar. Teagan Bliss on Em’s left, close to the glass sliding door, Jasmine Thomas on the right, nearest the fridge and wine supply, and closer to Em, a position she felt entitled to thanks to her ‘older friend’ status.
‘Who’d have thought he could be such a sly dog,’ said Teagan.
‘All men can be sly dogs when it suits them,’ said Jas, taking a swig from her glass. With no Saturday-morning shift at the building society to wake up for she was already deep into Friday-night party mode.
Em shot Teagan a look, warning her not to bite. Jas’s long-term affair with a married man had been discussed enough, Teagan’s disapproval voiced and noted, and Jas was hard enough on herself about it without Teagan taking swipes.
Teagan caught the look and took a sip of wine. ‘So, what is she like?’
‘Stunning. Long blonde hair, cheekbones like Angelina Jolie, sky-blue eyes.’
Jas rolled her eyes. ‘In other words, utterly hateable.’
‘Maybe, except she seems quite sweet and a bit shy, but that was probably more our fault. Everyone was so shocked and excited we kept throwing questions at her all at once. And then Mum started crying.’
‘And your gran?’ asked Teagan.
‘Reserving judgement.’
Jas laughed. ‘In other words, she thinks Felicity isn’t good enough.’
‘Well, she does come from Elizabeth.’
Teagan feigned a shock-horror gasp. ‘Elizabeth!’
‘Could have been worse.’
‘Yes, it could have been Smithfield,’ countered Jas with another of Adelaide’s notorious suburbs.
‘Or Salisbury.’
‘Cut it out, you two,’ said Em, trying not to laugh.
Jas raised her eyebrows. ‘Bit rich coming from you, Miss Emily Wallace-Jones.’
Em pressed her palm against her chest. ‘Unlike my grandmother, I reformed my ways and am no longer a snob.’
The girls grinned at one another. ‘Much.’
‘I’m not!’
‘No,’ said Teagan, pretending se
riousness, ‘of course you aren’t.’
‘Oh, shut up.’
Em sighed and returned to her pan, inhaling the winey fumes. No matter what anyone thought, she had reformed, although she had to admit to a slight wince when Felicity revealed where she grew up. But a birthplace shouldn’t dictate someone’s life, and it certainly didn’t reflect a person’s character. Experience had proved that more than once.
She studied the reduction and gave it a stir before peering through the oven door. A simple dish of pommes boulangère, lightly fragranced with rosemary, savory and thyme, occupied the top shelf. Below, three small racks of lamb sizzled, the outer layer of fat bubbling and browning. A few more minutes, and Em would take them out to rest while she finished whisking butter into the jus and steaming crunchy green beans.
Music floated from the stereo, the soft notes a counterpoint to the noise of the night. The weather bureau’s promised storm front had arrived late afternoon, curdling up from the southwest, frigid and dangerous. Wind gusts splattered fat raindrops against the windows and branches from nearby trees scraped the walls. The front of the house was insulated from the worst by its thick blue dolomite and limestone construction, with only an occasional haunting roof moan or wind whistle to signal the wild conditions outside. In a flimsier house, winter could have easily swept its echoes into every corner, but even the newer brick and timber living area at the rear, with its big windows, open-plan design and stone floor, was as sturdy and insulated as the old structure, keeping the elements well cloaked. Winter might rage but it could never cheat a stoked combustion stove, Em’s homely decor and the cosy warmth of friends.
Tomorrow, according to the forecast, a change would come. God knows Em needed it. After a week of rain and high wind the yard was a mess of fallen branches, leaves and pine needles, with flattened plants, washed-out garden beds and soggy lawn patches. Kicki and Cutie were destroying the stables from boredom, pushing impatiently past Em in their race for outside the moment she opened the half-door each morning, with no pause for velvety donkey nuzzles or ear scratches.
Em returned to her jus. The stock, wine, pancetta and herbs had reduced to almost syrup. She turned off the gas, grabbed a mitt off the bench and opened the oven door. Delicious roast smells blasted out.
‘God, that smells good,’ said Jas, leaning over the breakfast bar to inspect the pan. ‘Are they from Maloney’s?’
‘Horrigan’s.’
‘Ah.’
Em sensed her friends exchanging glances. Despite being the best butcher in town, she hadn’t set foot in Maloney’s for months. Although aware it was childish she couldn’t help it. She’d thought her relationship with Trent was ‘it’. Happily-ever-after fairytale land. Except it wasn’t, and the realisation still smarted. But now, four months on, Em was uncertain if that was because she’d been tossed over for a hairdresser six years younger and far more fashionable and vivacious than her or because she’d really loved him. In dark moments, Em suspected the former, and found the realisation discomfiting.
With the lamb tucked in foil, she busied herself with the gravy, steadied for another dissection of the end of her relationship, but Teagan and Jas left her alone. So they should. Like Jasmine’s affair with Mike Boland, they’d discussed it to pieces already.
Besides, there was Digby’s engagement to discuss.
As Em finished her preparations, Jas and Teagan settled at their places around the massive ten-seater dining table. It had once graced Camrick’s dining room, the dark, beeswaxed old timber with its dents and warps reflecting the warm light of the chandelier. Adrienne’s modernisation scheme had almost seen it sold until Em stepped in and claimed it for Rocking Horse Hill. The table was far too big for her needs but she couldn’t let it go. This was where she’d sat with Uncle James, drawing colourful crayon pictures of horses and hills on butcher’s paper, where she’d learned to play canasta with nearly as much wile as him, the table where he’d patiently explained his sexuality to her when she’d innocently asked why he’d never married.
‘So how did they meet?’ asked Jas.
‘A romantic bumping of trolleys in Woolworths. Well, not quite. Digby forgot to pack shaving cream and was trying to find the brand he uses when she accidentally rammed him.’
‘Huh,’ said Teagan. ‘That old trick. She probably spotted him a mile off. Good-looking bloke, well dressed, probably reasonably well off. A bit of a ram and away you go. Except in Digby’s case she hits the jackpot. Big time.’
Jas flopped her head to the side and raised her eyes. ‘You are such a cynic.’
‘And proud of it, too.’ She refocused on Em. ‘Will it be a church wedding?’
‘I’d imagine so. I can’t see Digby getting out of that.’ With the exception of the early pioneers, all Wallace marriages were conducted in Levenham’s Church of England, a late 1850s pink dolomite building that owed much of its impressively gabled construction and oversized spire to Wallace money.
‘She might be Catholic.’
‘She didn’t strike me as the religious type, although she doesn’t drink, so maybe she is.’
‘Doesn’t drink?’ asked Jas, shuddering at the notion.
Teagan tilted her wine glass towards Em. ‘Hardly a great match for a family of foodies like yours.’
‘You never know, in time we might be able to show her the error of her ways.’
‘Where will they live?’
Em made a face. ‘Camrick, I suppose.’
‘Not here?’ asked Teagan.
A wash of fan-forced heat struck her cheeks as Em opened the oven door. She frowned as the idea of Digby and Felicity wanting Rocking Horse Hill took hold, and let it slide. Her brother wasn’t one to renege on promises and, knowing how much she cherished the hill, Digby had sworn Em would have tenancy for as long as she wished, as long as she maintained the property. Everyone knew when it came to Em that meant a lifetime.
Anyway, he’d always preferred town and Camrick. Plus Felicity was city born and bred. What would she want with an old farm far from fun and facilities?
‘You know Dig. He’s never been a fan of the hill.’
Jas nodded in agreement. ‘And booting your sister out of the home she adores wouldn’t make for happy Christmas dinners.’
‘No.’
‘Love does strange things to people,’ warned Teagan. ‘And what’s going to happen when they decide to have kids? The stables make a great bachelor pad but they aren’t exactly practical for someone starting a family. What woman would want to lug a pregnant belly up and down those stairs, let alone prams and bassinettes and all that washing.’
Teagan was right. Digby wouldn’t tolerate it. He could move into Camrick, of course. Thanks to his inheritance it was, after all, his. But that would entail Granny B vacating her floor and finding other accommodation, or Adrienne relocating from the ground floor into the rooms opposite her mother’s, neither of which Em could imagine happening. Besides, Uncle James had granted Granny B life tenancy and although she was fit she was still an elderly woman. It would be imprudent to shunt her out to the stables, or, God forbid, a nursing home. The family would never hear the end of it.
Which only left Rocking Horse Hill.
‘I’m sure they’ll sort something out,’ said Em, hiding the twist of fear Teagan’s warning had unleashed. ‘It’s not like Digby can’t afford to buy a new place, and he did promise me the hill would always be mine.’
‘Promises can be broken.’
‘Tell me about it,’ muttered Jas, before throwing warning looks at her friends. ‘And before you ask, no, I don’t want to talk about Mike and his shitty “word”.’
Which, both Em and Teagan knew, was Jasmine’s code for ‘I want to discuss it desperately’. Exchanging a tiny smile, they let it slide. No point spoiling dinner with Mike and none of them had enough wine in their systems for that conversation.
Em carried the pommes boulangère to the table and placed the dish on a trivet alongside the beans for
the girls to help themselves, and returned to the bench for their plates. The lamb racks stood with scraped rib bones upright, flesh pink and fragrant, the jus a rich puddle at their bases. Muffy raised her head, sniffing.
Em set down the plates and blew her a kiss. ‘You can have the bones.’
‘Best restaurant in Levenham,’ said Teagan, smiling appreciatively at the contents of her plate.
Jas rubbed her palms together. ‘Gorgeous, but you know me, I’m looking forward to dessert.’
‘What are we having?’
‘Chestnut bavarois with crème anglaise.’ Em made a face. ‘It had better be good. I had a hell of a time trying to source marron purée. Had to order it off the net along with a bunch of other ingredients I’ll probably never use, just to make the cost of freight worthwhile.’
‘The things you do for us,’ said Jas, helping herself to a large scoop of potatoes. Unlike Teagan, who tended to eat with a birdlike fastidiousness that matched her sharp, heavily freckled features and feathery long copper hair, Jasmine’s adoration of good food showed on her plate and well-rounded body. She wasn’t fat or even overweight; she simply curved in all the right places. With her short dark curls, full-lipped mouth, clear pale skin and bouncy personality, men adored her. Frustratingly, the one man she adored back deserved castration. The bastard already had a wife, and children, but it was the false hope he kept giving Jas that made Em want to geld him. Three years of failed promises had worn gossamer thin, even, to Em’s relief, for Jas.
They settled into a hearty discussion about the spring show season. The first event was still months away, but their horses all carried shaggy winter coats and fat grass bellies, and required considerable attention to bring to a competitive standard. With the three of them reducing costs by sharing transport, and with their jobs to work around, seasons required spreadsheet scheduling.
Only when Em was desperate would Adrienne man the shop, otherwise Em had to organise a relief assistant, an expense PaperPassion’s profit margin could ill afford. Jas worked as a customer service specialist for a local building society and was often rostered for Saturday mornings. Though she coveted a different life, a hefty mortgage and damaging relationship had so far kept her stagnant. Teagan had to work around the demands of her parents’ property, which in the last year or so, to everyone’s great confusion, seemed to teeter constantly on the brink of forfeiture. The poor girl had been working herself ragged, trying to make machinery and fences in desperate need of replacement last a bit longer. Continually moving stock to different paddocks to preserve what little winter forage the Blisses had because they hadn’t cut hay or renovated pastures since Teagan’s brother left three years before.