The House On Burra Burra Lane (20 page)

When young Morelly came in and took up his chair by his father, Ethan excused himself from their company. He turned to the bar to find Julia watching him. She stood with her group of friends from the next town; a couple of girls smartened up for the night, and young men with beers, eager and attentive.

He hadn’t fronted a young woman since he’d been a young man and that was a long time ago. He didn’t want to brush Julia off or hurt her feelings but he couldn’t imagine why she would have told Sammy he’d asked her out. He hoped to God she didn’t actually like him. That she was playing, experimenting with her female powers. Lording it over men, and learning how to keep them floundering in her wake. He felt a sudden compassion for the brown trout, caught on the hook and struggling.

‘Julia,’ he said as he came up to her. ‘Can I talk to you for a moment?’

She stepped away from her friends. Ethan moved them to the end of the bar. He wasn’t sure if people had noticed, but he imagined they had. Still, it had to be done, so he didn’t look around. Didn’t want to see people’s interest; his focus was already in question because he didn’t have a clue how to start. His mouth tingled and his jaw cracked as he spoke. ‘I think there might have been some confusion about the meeting I’ve just had with Grandy.’

‘Oh?’

‘Someone told me you’d said I was meeting you here.’ He felt like a headmaster about to expel a girl for having too much oomph. ‘For a date.’

Colour suffused her cheeks. He felt sure his own tan might be a little sallow. ‘Did I get that wrong?’

‘Not exactly.’

‘Well. It’s caused a bit of a problem for me. I hope I haven’t given you any indication that I would—’ How should he put it? ‘That I might have asked you out.’

‘Don’t you want to?’

‘I’m thirty four, Julia. Way too old for you.’

‘Am I attractive though?’

His focus wandered as he wavered between possible answers. Her group of friends at the bar were ignoring them. Except for one young man, who looked as though his beer was sour in his mouth.

‘Any number of young men find you very attractive. And Darren Collins doesn’t seem too pleased to see me talking to you.’

‘I’m not speaking to him. He made me angry. Is he looking at me now?’

‘Like a man on the prowl.’

‘We had an argument. I told him I wouldn’t go out with him.’

‘Do you think you could cut him some slack? He looks desperate.’

‘It took him nearly two weeks to ask me out. I’d been encouraging him the whole time and he didn’t budge. Now he thinks I’ll do it because he’s made up his mind at last.’

The kid was so young. ‘We men don’t get things as quickly as you women.’

She looked at him enquiringly, but the pout on her mouth stayed put.

‘You need to run us over with a tractor. We don’t understand unless you tell us in plain, simple English. Perhaps Darren didn’t understand. Or perhaps you make him nervous.’

‘Do men get nervous?’

He held his smile back. ‘Sometimes we’re terrified.’

She obviously considered this a newsflash. Her eyes popped as she tilted her face. ‘Do you think I make Darren nervous?’

‘No question. It’s probably why he took so long to ask you out. He’d have been worried in case you said no.’

‘I told Sammy I was meeting you because he was listening. I wanted to shock him. I don’t want him thinking I’m a pushover when he eventually clicks his fingers.’

‘You’ve shocked him.’ And a couple of other people too. ‘He’s probably learned his lesson by now.’

‘I didn’t expect Sammy to believe me. Did she tell you?’

It would take a few years before maturity padded Julia Morelly’s brain as much as her bra. ‘She mentioned it.’ The kid looked guilty but her feminine wiles had perked up. Her attitude focussed entirely on the young man behind her, enticing him to look at her, want her. Ethan didn’t know whether to laugh or buy the young man a commiserating beer.

Damn
. His ease was short-lived. Julia battered him with her
Look.

‘Are you saying you don’t like me enough to ask me out?’

‘I’m saying I’m too old for you. And that I wouldn’t want to get in the way of so many younger men.’

‘You don’t find me attractive?’

Maybe Darren should make a run for it. Julia had been sixteen when Ethan came back to town, nothing more than a teenager getting through high school. He’d watched her grow up into this tantalisingly wicked young woman. ‘I like Sammy.’ He spoke quietly and was unembarrassed. By admitting that to Julia, he’d effectively told the whole town.

‘I thought you did. She looked shocked when I told her we were meeting tonight. I wondered if perhaps you two already had something going on.’

He didn’t answer that. It wasn’t anybody’s business but theirs. ‘So, are we straight here?’

She grinned. ‘Is he still looking at me?’

Ethan didn’t need to move his gaze; the vibes of sulky youth were heading his way. He nodded.

‘Well then. I’m going to make a move on Darren Collins.’

Ethan smiled as she wound her slinky way to the poor young sucker at the bar, then he turned for the door.

It was time he made a move on Sammy Walker.

E
than swung the field gate open as the first drops of rain fell on his oilskin coat in splats the size of fried eggs.

The horses were clumped together at the fence line, whinnying and snorting, rump banging rump and hooves thumping the grass. They knew.

Goliath turned his head, raised his nose and blew at the air.

‘All right, boy,’ Ethan said, putting a halter on him. ‘Let’s get them safe.’

He calmed them with words as he led Goliath out of the gate, talking smoothly about how good they were going to feel in the stables. He hadn’t brought their leading reins and there wasn’t time to worry about that now. They followed him and their lead horse, their all-weather rugs clinging to their bodies the wetter they got.

Ethan pulled the hood of his coat over his head, wiped the saturated hair from his brow and the residual water from his face.

Half a kilometre to the stables and the gunmetal-grey bitumen shone like a flat lake in the moonlight, awash with the rain. All Seasons Road was scattered with wildflowers along the rutted verge. Some of the tender looking plants had closed their petals, bracing for the onslaught. Some would see it through, no matter how hard a storm and what the sky shed. The rain washed through the wide, bent branches of the snow gums and dripped through the leaves in a steady pour, turning the patchy bark an ashen white. There were no birds, they were long gone; they’d known before anyone.

The horses were breathing hard, smelling fear and confused at being free on the road. Sweat rose from their rugs like steam from a billy. Ethan glanced up. The rainbow above them was a ruse. An arc of softly blending colours against dark clouds, the edges melding into the parts of the sky still blue—disappearing with each step he took.

He comforted himself with the thought that Sammy would be at the house. If she’d gone into town this morning, it would have been earlier. It was almost lunchtime now. He’d spent a sleepless night plotting his way inside her front door, not expecting it to be today. There were some things a man needed time to plan. Getting through Sammy’s front door and asking her to go to bed with him was one of those times.

He pushed that from his mind; it didn’t matter now. He was concerned about her wellbeing. He’d been called out at 4 am to a sheep in labour, expecting her first lambs and having some trouble. He’d taken a shower on his return home to open the surgery, but had stopped when he walked out of his bathroom and noticed the quiet.

A tranquil silence. Too quiet.

As soon as he got the horses stabled, he’d call her. She might not understand the storm brewing was going to be pretty bad. She needed to stay inside the house, not wander outside. He wouldn’t use the words
pretty bad
. A bad storm was just bad. To locals,
pretty bad
meant possible annihilation. Sammy wouldn’t know that.

He left Goliath outside the stables and led two horses inside, hooking an arm under their necks, like a halter. They bucked, whinnied when he stalled them, used to being free to graze, hardly ever contained in the stables.

He returned for two more, with a bucket of feed in his hand. They followed, plus the third, smelling food other than grass. He stabled them.

Goliath stood where he was, waiting in the rain.

‘Come on,’ he said, leading Goliath inside. ‘Good boy, you’re a clever fella, aren’t you?’

Goliath went into his stall, turned and looked at Ethan.

‘I’ll come back.’ Ethan lifted the gate and latched it into place. ‘I have to go get Sammy now.’

Goliath whinnied, loud and cranky suddenly, stomping his rear hooves, kicking up dust.

Ethan turned.

The air was cold, with a bitter taste in its bite. By the time he got to his house the hailstones on his shoulders were the size of peas.

He picked up his ute keys and punched Sammy’s home telephone number into his mobile.
Service temporarily unavailable.

The roof of the surgery, and his house attached to it, was tiled. The noise of the hail hitting it deafened him. Sammy’s house had a metal roof. The racket would be thunderous.

Lightning forked, sparking grey-blue fury on the world outside his window. There’d be damage, to more than just properties.

He tried Sammy’s number again from the landline. No connection. He threw the telephone down and headed for the door, knocking the bunch of flowers he’d bought her to the floor, the pink and green shiny paper rustling as it came undone, pollen scattering on the white tiles like flecks of gold.

When he stepped outside the wind knocked him sideways. It took fifteen seconds that felt more like minutes to get to his truck. The oilskin coat flapped between his lower legs, hindering his moves. The hailstones pounded the back of his head.

The engine fired first go.

He kept to a ten kilometre speed. He should know his way with his eyes closed but the blindfold of the weather hampered everything. The windscreen wipers were on fast, and couldn’t cope with the deluge.

He winced, practically felt every dent his near-new ute received as the ice stones struck it. He took a chance, accelerated to fifteen kilometres and opened his window. It gave him an edge. The hail pelted straight at the truck, skimmed off the windscreen and the roof, mostly missing the open window and his face.

The verge had been green this morning, now it was brown, but the distinction of muddy earth against silver-wet bitumen enabled him to gauge his way forwards. If he’d seen anyone attempting to drive in this, he’d have pulled them over and thumped them for the stupidity. But Sammy was on her own.

He blinked rapidly, shaking his head and clearing the wet from his vision. Fate wasn’t something he believed in. That, or destiny. There was no credence to it. Things happened. Life was chance. But, if by chance he had stuck to the ten kilometre speed, would everything be the same as it would by pushing the pace up to fifteen kilometres? Would that extra five help, if she was in trouble?

He didn’t know, but he asked fate to give him the right chance. He wanted Sammy to know what he felt for her. And right now he needed chance to help him with that.

‘Duke! Duke!’

Sammy’s hands shook so badly she couldn’t get the padlock on the shed door fastened, but it had to be done or the doors would be ripped from the rusty hinges. The rain skimmed off the hood of her twill jacket, mingling with the hailstones and getting trapped inside her useless city coat. It felt like she’d been wet for hours, not minutes.

‘Duke!’ she called again, not hearing her own voice, but feeling the rasp at the back of her throat. This weather was almighty. It would be impressive in the newspaper photos, but too powerful to be in. It was too much for anyone.

Duke would be wandering the fields; he wouldn’t have sensed the storm coming.

Sammy had smelled it in the air as soon as she stepped out of the shower and into her bedroom, a towel wrapped around her wet body and the wind from the open bedroom window blowing cold air through the room. She hadn’t dried herself, just closed the window, dropped the towel, pulled on her track pants and a shirt. She’d grabbed her hooded jacket, and run to the chickens.

But she couldn’t force them to go inside their cubbyhouse. She’d shooed them, clapped her hands, but they were scared, wings flapping, no sense.

She snapped the padlock on the shed door closed, her fingers icy from the hail. She’d had to leave the chickens to it. The poor little things. Her eyes smarted. She blinked back hot, pointless tears. She still had so much to do. Her kitchen windows were open, the back door wide, the kitchen would be flooded. She was already ankle-deep in water. ‘Duke! Where are you?’ She’d never seen such a downpour in one fall. It had nowhere to run off.

Thunder cracked above her.

Electricity
. She had to do something about that.

She leaned against the shed door, forehead on the wood, hailstones pelting the back of her hooded head, rain running in rivulets down her back and legs. She breathed deeply, calming herself, ignoring the sting of the hailstones. The meter box was at the house, outside, behind the kitchen. She had to forget about Duke, and save her house because if it went up in flames, there would be nothing left for Duke to come home to.

The metal sheeting on the roof of the shed cracked, rivets popping like firecrackers. Her muscles went sickeningly slack as a sheet ripped off and flew through the air above her. She gripped the handle of the shed door. She wanted to scream and couldn’t make the noise. The hammering in her chest stopped everything.

Someone took hold of her around her waist, dragged her, lifted her, swung her up.

She couldn’t breathe.

‘You fool!’

‘Ethan.’ He had a cruel hold of her. ‘You’re hurting me.’ She twisted in his grip. His arms were like a vice around her.

He ran with her to the house, thrust through the front door, kicked it closed with his boot as the noise got worse; higher pitched, deafening.