Silence.
She sighed. ‘Refresh your page.’
Silence again.
She threw her arms up, collapsing back in the chair, her voice filled with forced calm. ‘Yes if you think that will work.’ A corner of fabric hung off the edge of the table and she grabbed it. Tilda flinched at every tug and yank as she tried to pull the fabric free.
‘Yes. Thank you.’ Izzy ripped off the headset, chucked it across the room onto her desk and gave the fabric one last tug, nearly sending the sewing machine flying off the table, a quick arm the only thing stopping it. Silence filled the room, Izzy’s shoulders hunched and head hanging.
Tilda slid the door the rest of the way open. ‘Hi.’
Izzy spun the chair around, her stormy face morphing into a laughing smile. ‘You heard all that? Sorry. Friggin’ thing keeps catching. I’ll have to sew it all by hand.’
Leaning on the edge of the table, Tilda sifted through sheets of patterns and fabric. ‘I can help.’
‘Really?’
‘Sure. It’ll keep me in practice for sutures.’ Tilda was sure that with her luck, sewing and suturing would be nothing alike, but she’d do anything just to have something to do, and helping in the process would be a happy by-product.
Izzy swept her arms across the table, pulling it all into a messy bundle, catching pieces about to fall off the edge, and tossing it all into a wicker basket that she pushed into Tilda’s arms with a grateful sigh. ‘Thank you so much. You’re saving my arse.’
‘Well I… uh.’ Tilda hadn’t meant she’d do the whole thing. But before she could clarify, the phone let out a shrill tone and Izzy had put on her headset, glancing at the number on the screen and answering with, ‘Don’t say it.’
Jonathan with another problem, Tilda guessed. She looked around at the mess of papers and folders on Izzy’s desk, at least ten things open on her laptop screen. The basket was getting heavy cradled in her arms so she grabbed the handle and let it hang by her side, resting an edge on the ground. She’d offered, right? Might as well get to it. Not like she had anything better to do.
‘Tilly? The kids are on the bus today. Forgot to let you know.’ Izzy called out, catching Tilda just as she stepped out the back door.
Tilda took the basket back to the cottage, stopping on the way past to let Comet out of his yard, waiting for him to reach the steps and then helping him up. He was heavier than she expected, and she walked slowly behind him, taking the basket into the kitchen as he wandered around searching for Clare. When he didn’t find her, he settled at Tilda’s feet instead. It was only a small table and it was quickly covered as Tilda spread everything out on it. It took a while to make sense of it all before finding a place to start.
She was stuffing a hump, trying to stop the white fluff from blowing away every time the fan turned her way, when she heard the ute rumbling up the driveway, coming to a stop outside the cottage, idling. A door slammed, and the engine roared as the ute pulled away, loud enough that she hardly heard the footsteps coming up the hallway, glancing up to see Clare hesitate in the doorway. Any awkwardness was pushed aside by Comet who hopped over as Clare crouched down to greet him and looked up at Tilda with a sweet smile. The joey pushed the top of his head against her chest, almost tumbling her backwards. ‘There’s a storm coming.’
Tilda paused mid-stuff and looked out the window. Black clouds stood out, rising up behind the ridge. She breathed in deep, the scent of salty air and ocean a rare occurrence in the middle of livestock country. A little flurry of panic and she checked the time. The kids would be off the bus and home by now.
Clare filled a glass of water from the tap, sipping as she leaned against the sink. ‘How’s Alice the camel coming along?’
‘So far she’s got one hump.’ Tilda smiled. At least they weren’t avoiding each other anymore, just avoiding the topic. She weighed up the hump and decided it was big enough, reaching for the needle and thread to sew the last bit of it up.
‘What Christmas play has a camel in it?’
‘Beats me.’ Tilda shrugged, swearing when she stabbed her finger with the needle.
Clare came over to the table, Comet on her heels. He settled underneath as she slid into a chair, touching and turning the pattern sheet. ‘Want some help?’
A twinge of relief, Tilda’s shoulders relaxed a little at those three little words. ‘Please.’
13
THEY WORKED IN comfortable silence, only the occasional question about what was what and which went where. Both glanced across the table now and then, Tilda stabbing her fingers a few more times when she wasn’t paying attention. The storm clouds came over, the air became heavier. After a while there came the hush of rain through the open window, growing louder as it got closer, and then raindrops pinged on the tin roof, amplified and echoing through the cottage.
Deciding it was time to take a break, they went out onto the veranda and sat, watching the rain, the lightning splitting the horizon, thunder vibrating everything around them. As slow as the storm had come, it seemed to slow even further as it reached them, lingering and not looking like it would move on any time soon. Not wanting to get soaked, Tilda and Clare ate dinner in the cottage. They rustled up a meal with whatever they could find and set out a picnic on the kitchen floor, eating with the rain on the roof so loud they had to lean in and shout across the blanket.
A clap of thunder made them both jump. With a flicker the lights went out, the fans wound down and stopped, and the cottage fell into darkness except for bright flashes of lightning. Tilda searched by feel through the cupboard above the fridge, coming up with a torch, and right at the back, an old camping lantern with a tiny slosh of oil left in the tank.
Tilda set up the lantern on the table while Clare took the torch, vanishing out into the hallway and coming back with the deck of cards Tilda recognised from the hall table drawer. ‘Go Fish or Snap?’
Laughter and the slap of hands and cards drowned out the sound of rain until the lantern flickered and the light died with a diminishing pop. They were sunk back into darkness for a moment, and then Clare switched on the torch, the weak beam lighting their faces from below.
‘Now what?’
‘Bed?’
Tilda shrugged. ‘Not really tired. Are you?’
‘No.’ Clare popped her lips, letting out a sigh.
‘We could read, I guess.’
‘Only have one torch, though. We’ll have to share.’
‘Where… How?’ Tilda’s legs were cramping from sitting on the floor for so long. The kitchen chairs wouldn’t be comfortable, and there were only armchairs in the living room, too heavy and old to move from their opposite corners.
‘My bed?’ Clare paused. ‘Or yours? Whichever.’
Tilda swallowed, her mind scrambling. But Clare decided. ‘Mine.’
They squeezed in tight on the single mattress, the torch resting on the bed head between them, shining down just enough light for both of them to see their pages if they held their books in the right spot.
After a bit, Clare put her book down so suddenly that Tilda did the same. ‘What?’
‘The other day… At the sink.’ Clare bit her lip.
‘Right.’ Tilda would have been all too happy to avoid the topic forever, but it was unlikely now. ‘I’m sorry—’
‘No, I’m the one who should apologise. I—I started it.’ Clare breathed a tiny laugh. ‘So…’
Tilda’s mind raced. She didn’t know what to say and had even less of a clue where Clare was trying to lead the conversation. If the kiss had been a mistake… Then again, what did it matter? They both had their own lives. As soon as her mandatory holidays were over, she’d be back at the hospital. And Clare would be busy doing her own thing, finding a place and setting herself up. It wouldn’t be worth the heartbreak to start something and then watch it fall apart. She already knew the guilt she’d felt every time Jem pointed out that the hospital and her patients came first. It wouldn’t be fair.
Clare must have read Tilda’s panicked silence because she held out a hand. ‘Just friends?’
‘You can never have too many.’ Tilda winced at her own stupidity. ‘Friends.’ She shook Clare’s hand. For the tiniest moment, she didn’t want to let go, but a clap of thunder made her jump, her grip slipping.
Back to their books, they read in silence. Comet shuffled around on the floor and then settled in his pouch. Occasional lightning threw shadows around the room. Tilda glanced past Clare and out the window, the storm on the horizon visible, and sometimes entrancing, the way the light danced and lit up the clouds. After a while Tilda’s eyelids drooped, her breathing slow and her chest heavy, her grip on the book lessening, the pages faltering out of the beam of light.
Tilda woke with a jolt. The torch had just fallen from its spot and landed on her chest, rolling down and shining in her face. Tilda guessed she’d been asleep for longer than she’d thought because Clare was asleep too, half leaning with her back pressed into Tilda’s side, the edge of the mattress precariously close on either side of them. Tilda turned the torch off and reached up, resting it in the gap between the bed head and the wall. Out the window she could see that the storm had passed, a breeze of clean air creeping in. Judging by the oscillating hum of the fan out in the kitchen, the power was back on. A soft rustle marked out the rise and fall of Clare breathing beside her. Tilda didn’t move, telling herself that it was only so she wouldn’t rouse Clare or jostle her off the edge, and was asleep again before she knew it.
An elbow nudging her ribs woke her. Her mind was slow at taking in that her arm was draped over Clare’s side, her fingers touching bare skin where Clare’s shirt had ridden up during the night, their bodies shaped and melded together in the middle of the small bed. With slow and careful movements, Tilda lifted her arm away, placing her hand on her own leg. Morning light spilled into the room, the happy chirp of birds announcing a beautiful day. The temperature was already rising, and it was too hot to stay there like that. Tilda was already sweaty with sudden nerves as it was, and the places where their skin touched burned with their joined body heat. Moving slowly, Tilda peeled away from Clare. It reminded her of how as a kid, in the heat of summer, the backs of her thighs would stick to the vinyl bus seats. With a final movement, she rolled her hip out, Clare settling half on her back but not waking up.
Tilda’s book had fallen and was splayed open on the floor. She picked it up, spied the chair in the corner. It’d be weird if she just hung around, right? So, she tiptoed out and dropped the book off in her own room before going into the kitchen. She ran hot water into the sink, cleaning up the remnants of their picnic and washing the dishes. The kitchen restored, she sat at the table and gathered up the pieces Clare had been working on, her mind constantly wandering until she sewed her finger into the second hump, a gentle prompt to give her full and needed attention to the task.
14
WITH THE CAMEL’S head sewn on and the body complete, Tilda tied off the last thread and broke it with her teeth, sticking the needle into a dishcloth doubling as a pincushion. She held it up, saw the makings of a limp and emaciated camel, and put it aside to take over to Izzy later. Collecting and brushing random pieces of thread and fabric into her hand, Tilda could hear Clare shuffling around in her room, the burr of her fan starting up, things being moved around, the rhythmic hop-thump of Comet nosing along behind her.
Tilda got the first aid kit from the bathroom and carried it down the hallway, pausing outside the now closed door. She hesitated, gathered herself, then knocked.
‘Come in.’
She opened the door, just as Clare pulled on a clean shirt, catching a glimpse of honey brown skin before the hem fell down around her hips. She almost turned back around when she saw a flash of bare legs and black underwear, but Clare had spotted the kit in her hands.
‘Please tell me you’re here to take these god-awful itchy things out.’ Clare pointed at her leg, half turning it and twisting at the hips, looking down at the stitches.
All Tilda could manage was a nod. ‘Maybe lay down? On your side?’
Clare laid down and Tilda perched on the edge of the mattress, purposefully sitting so she was looking down along Clare’s leg towards her foot. Busying herself, she opened the kit and inspected the red circle of scratched skin around the sutured cut. It had healed well, and with a gentle snip and tug, she took the stitches out with a practiced ease.
‘How’s it look?’
Tilda tested the edges and glanced up. Clare was staring at her over her shoulder, head resting in her palm and her elbow planted in the pillow. ‘Looks good. There’ll be a scar, but it’ll fade with time. And there’s still a little scab, so don’t scratch.’ Squeezing a dab of cream on a square of gauze, Tilda disinfected the area, careful around the little puncture holes left behind, her fingers lingering, brushing over the skin. She pulled her hand back, clearing her throat. ‘Done.’
‘Thanks.’ Clare bounced around onto her back, her legs resting in Tilda’s lap for a moment before she scooted back and leaned against the bedhead with her legs crossed, not caring that she was half naked. And that Tilda was blushing, her head turned as she packed the kit away.
It took a moment for Tilda to realise Clare was speaking, telling how a farmer had told her about a wildlife rescue place and sounding out the name of the town nearest to it, butchering it completely. But Tilda knew the place she’d meant, vaguely remembering driving past what had looked like a small zoo years ago. She hadn’t been out that way in a long time. ‘It’s not too far. Take a whole day to drive there and back though. Might be a two-day trip.’
Clare chewed the inside of her lip. ‘Wanna come with? You can be my navigator. Otherwise I’d probably get lost just finding my way to the end of your driveway.’
The thought of doing more than sitting around waiting to go back to work made Tilda’s stomach do a little flip of joy. ‘I’m in. But I’m driving.’
‘Deal.’ Clare held out her hand, and they shook on it. ‘We could leave after the school play. If it’s a two day thing, I don’t want you to miss out on seeing the kids on stage. Plus you’d miss seeing your handiwork up there. And I don’t want to rush leaving Comet either.’
Now Tilda’s stomach lurched. Even though she’d been the one to say it, it just hit her that it would be an overnight trip. ‘Sure.’
Clare slid forward onto her knees, laying on her stomach across the bed with her head and arms hanging down. The joey was stretched out in the cool on the floor and Clare pat his back with long strokes. Not knowing what else to do, Tilda did the same, a scratch behind the ear making the joey curl and twitch.
‘Poor little guy.’ Clare rested her chin on her arm, her voice a little muffled. ‘I wonder if he misses his mum.’
Tilda wondered out loud—if Clare hadn’t stopped to rescue him and cut her leg, would they have met? A muffled laugh escaped from Clare. ‘Well… if the stories are true about you practically living in the hospital, then maybe we wouldn’t have. But I’m plenty clumsy, I’m sure I would’ve ended up in emergency eventually.’
Comet rolled onto his back, scratched at his stomach and then stood, hopping over to the bowl of water set down for him under the window.
‘Can I ask something personal?’ Tilda rested her cheek on her arm, blood threatening to rush to her head. Only after seeing Clare nod did she continue. ‘You love Christmas.’
‘Not a question, but yes.’
‘Why?’
Clare rolled over onto her back, stared up at the ceiling for so long Tilda lost hope of getting an answer.
Eventually, Clare spoke. ‘It’s my brother’s fault. I’m not half as bad compared to him. A complete fanatic. Every year when we were kids. First day of December. Like clockwork. It’d start with his socks, usually bright red or green, covered in reindeer or Santa cartoons or snowflakes. By the end of term, he’d be wearing Christmas ties, or a Santa hat, or antlers, jumpers with wool baubles stuck all ove
r them. You name it, he probably wore it. Completely not school uniform, and he’d refuse to take any of it off. Spent every afternoon in detention, but he didn’t care.’ She sat up. ‘He tried to get me into the whole Christmas thing too.’ Shuffled around on the bed and reached down the other side, coming back with a pair of shorts.
Tilda sat up as Clare pulled something from a pocket and held it out. Cradled in her palm was a badge with a creatively drawn cartoon reindeer half sunk in a bank of snow. The badge was a little faded, the picture spotted, and the metal rubbed bare around the edges. ‘He made it for me one year. First day of December I dig it out, carry it with me in my pocket until Christmas Day.’
Tilda realised now that it must have been the badge that she’d been looking at the first day at the cottage, sitting out on the veranda. Clare stared down at it, the safety pin attached to the back rattling as she turned it between her fingers. ‘We’d watch Christmas movies every weekend. All the corny British and American ones, where they’re set in the dead cold of winter and there’s snow everywhere and people are dressed in a million layers. Hats and beanies and woollen jumpers. And we were sitting there, watching, sweating through our singlets, so hot you’d burn the soles of your feet off on the concrete if you went outside without shoes. We’d have pillow fights when they’d have snowball fights. Half frozen milkshakes when they drank hot chocolate or eggnog. If we were allowed to, or if no one else was home, we’d crank the air conditioning until our teeth chattered.’
She smiled up at Tilda, who saw a glint in the corner of her eye. Clare leaned over, put the badge on the bedside table. ‘The last Christmas we had together, I’d just graduated, moved back home. He was in hospital. Hospice, actually.’
‘I’m sorry.’ It was a whisper, but Tilda knew Clare had heard her, saw the little shake of her head.
‘The nurses were nice. They told him they needed to do a few tests. It was just a ploy to get him out of the room. By then there was nothing anyone could… um.’ She shook her head again, clearing her throat and memory, eyes moving as she traced back to her original train of thought. ‘Anyway. After a while the nurse came up with some excuse for why they had to wait and do the test another day and they brought him back to his room.’
All She Wants Page 6