Visitors

12

Visitors

    Harriet was discovered sitting under the mango trees—again.

    “Harriet,” said her sister on a weak note: “what is that man doing in the lounge-room?”

    Mildly Harriet replied: “He’s not ‘that man’, Trisha, he’s Hughie, don’t be silly.”

    “I know he’s that awful Hughie, thanks!” she snapped. “What’s he doing sitting in your lounge-room large as life and twice as natural, watching a TV that isn’t even yours?”

    “It’s his, he brought it with him. I think it’s the cricket or the Tour de France or something. Both, very likely.”

    “Why is he in your lounge-room?” screamed Trisha, turning purple.

    “I’m not absolutely sure,” replied Harriet in the thoughtful, detached tone that for years had been guaranteed to drive Trisha wild—she was never sure if she did it on purpose or not: that made it worse, somehow. “Indirectly I suppose it’s because I said he could come over any time. Um, that was that day Aunty Daphne had dragged you off to look at curtain fabrics and Steve and Uncle Phil were down the bowling club. I couldn’t think what to do with him, so I sat him down in front of the TV and gave him a beer—”

    “I saw that, thanks!”

    “What? No, I mean before, Trisha—that day. In Brisbane. And then it seemed rude just to leave him to it, though actually I don’t think he’d have minded, so I sat down with him. He told me quite a lot about Ben and the stuff they used to do together.”

    “Get drunk,” diagnosed Trisha grimly.

    “As well as that,” replied Harriet with the utmost placidity. “Get out in the bush and shoot things, mostly, I think. He’s got a collection of stuffed lizards, and quite a few pet ones.”

    Trisha loathed lizards, in fact after an episode of some geckos on the bedroom ceiling during their first visit she’d been in two minds about coming up here again. Not admitting this to her nearest and dearest wasn’t actually helping her mood. “Ugh!”

    “I thought they sounded interesting. I said I’d really like to see them and he told me a lot about them—their habits, and what they eat and how to tell a lizard track in the dirt. It’s different from a snake track, you see.”

    Trisha looked round them warily but no snake emerged from the mango trees ready to bite her. Steve had insisted on watching that awful movie, Snakes On A Plane, when it came on TV, but she’d refused point-blank and retired to bed. According to him it had been a riot, the bloody nongs had given the things teeth—like, not fangs, jaws full of teeth!—Snapping his jaws in illustration.—You could actually see where the cartoonists had drawn in the teeth, about as realistic as an eight-year-old’s effort. Outlined in black, geddit?

    “Did he say there were snakes round here?” she shuddered.

    “Not specifically, but I dare say there are, round and about, but they don’t like being near people,” Harriet replied calmly. “It’s just a matter of checking carefully before you sit down on a clump of grass, or walk through tall grass, but when they sense the vibrations you make walking around they scarper.”

    “Which of them told you that?” she enquired arctically.

    “Both.”

    Trisha took a deep breath. “You still haven’t explained what the man’s doing here! Why isn’t he watching his own blimmin’ TV in his own blimmin’ HOUSE?”

    “I said, I’m not absolutely sure; but I think he’s lonely—missing Ben. They were planning to go right up to the top of Cape York some time this year. Well, not in the Wet, obviously—later.”

    “Harrie, he’s gonna foist himself on you forever and a day!” she wailed.

    “No, he’s not, he’s got his own place to look after.”

    “Look, he was down in Brizzie for days on end and now he’s over here, whatever he does on this place of his it can’t be much!”

    “He’s got a macadamia orchard and he grows celery as well. He’s not busy at the moment.”

    “Ya don’t say!”

    She just had said, hadn’t she? There was no fuller explanation for Hughie’s presence, unfortunately, so Harriet said nothing.

    “I suppose he’ll want lunch, next,” noted Trisha evilly.

    “Um, what is the time?” replied Harriet vaguely.

    Grimly Trisha consulted her watch. “Nearly one.”

    “Oh. Well, yes, I suppose he will.”

    “Where’s your watch?”

    “I dunno,” said Harriet in a vague voice. “Does it matter? We’re on holiday. Well, um, shall we have lunch?”

    “The others have vanished!”

    Oh, help. Leaving Trisha to discover a large almost-stranger in the lounge-room—Hughie Davis was tall and very burly, with shoulders like an ox, great hammy hands, thinning, faded ginger hair and one of the those large, wide, blobby red faces that in her deluded youth Harriet had fondly imagined would die out in Australia with her grandfather’s generation. Hah, hah.

    “Steve did say something about taking the tinnie out,” she said in a very weak voice.

    Trisha glared suspiciously at the sea but it remained quite placid-looking, if murky and overcast. So she fell back on: “Is there any visibility out there?”

    “I don’t think they were going far. Just pottering round the coast.”

    “That means he’ll of gone down to Big Rock Bay to drink beer with that Scott Bell!”

    More than likely, yes—if Isabelle Bell would let them get away with it. “You could always give Isabelle a ring,” she ventured cautiously.

    Trisha got up. “No, blow them! Come on, let’s have ours! –I thought you were gonna pick some mangoes?” she added, noticing the empty bucket.

    “Was I? Oh, yeah. We could, if you like.”

    Trisha sighed, but got on with it. Quite some time back—before she’d decided to do some washing and hang it out even though it looked as if it could drizzle any minute—Harriet had definitely said she was gonna pick some. Why else had she brought the bucket, for Pete’s sake? But it was pretty clear she was taking Ben’s death hard: there was no use saying anything to her. But honestly! Letting that great lump Hughie Whatsisface foist himself on her? She’d be landed with him forever and a day, he’d get his feet under the table and the bludger’d be eating her out of house and home for the rest of his life! Not to say drinking her out of house and home—that was a six-pack he’d had at his elbow!

    “I don’t like leaving her,” she said uneasily as the Drinkwaters took off for home, with Harriet waving happily from the front door.

    Steve already knew this: he just grunted.

    “That Hughie’s a real pest, he’ll be around there all the time, ya know,” she grumbled.

    He sighed. “She likes him, Trisha.”

    “Steve, he’s taking gross advantage of her!”

    At least he wasn’t doing it sexually. Steve didn’t say anything.

    From the back seat a voice offered: “He’s all right. He showed me his liz—”

    “We KNOW!” shouted Trisha, and the misguided Jimbo subsided.

    In the back Kyla hissed: “Ssh! She can’t stand lizards, you twit!” but her parents managed to pretend they hadn’t heard.

    “Who’ll be next, that’s what I wanna know,” continued Trisha darkly.

    Well, they’d had the lumpish Hughie and the wild Abos, who else could there possibly be round Big Rock Bay way? The district included several Chinese families, but the nearest lot, the Wongs who used to own a farm up the back of the motel, had sold up and the place was now a fancy ecolodge, so there’d be no chance of a Chinese boyfriend. There was absolutely nothing wrong with either the Chinese segment of the population in general or, from all Steve had heard about them, the Wong family in particular, they were hard-working, pleasant people, and in this particular instance had been in Australia for generations, but never mind multiculturalism, Trisha wouldn’t of liked it. She had a Chinese friend herself, mind you: Sue Chong, she was a really nice woman and her hubby, Derek, was a decent joker, but— Yeah. Anyway, that was out. And anything from the hugely up-market and humungously expensive ecolodge, which was aimed at overseas tourists, wouldn’t look twice at Harrie, that was for sure. And if she did get picked up by some footloose and fancy-free guy from the motel ten to one it’d be behind his wife’s back, so it wouldn’t last more than a few days of his holiday, and even if he was divorced it wouldn’t last, because anyone who stayed at Big Rock Bay Motel was absolutely bound to be just an ordinary joker, and they had more than enough proof that once they found out how mad she was they couldn’t drop her quick enough, didn’t they?

    “Don’t s’pose there’ll be anyone; who’s she gonna meet round there?” he said hastily, as the silence was beginning to simmer.

    “There weren’t any boys except that nong Tony that was staying at the motel,” put in Kyla on a hopeful note.

    “Just be quiet, if you can’t be helpful, Kyla!” snapped her mother.

    Kyla was quiet. So was everybody else. The Drinkwaters drove south in a dreary mizzle with the temperature around thirty-two Celsius, the humidity around ninety-six percent and the car’s air-con failing to cope. Everybody was dripping but for once nobody complained.

    Steve was right, of course, and Harriet found life at Sandy Cove very, very peaceful. Hughie dropped in occasionally, and so did George, with or without one or two of his mates. Neither of them wanted to talk, they seemed very happy just to drink a few beers, sit out the back or up under the mango trees and gaze at the sea, or watch a bit of TV on the set she’d given in and had installed. Well, she had all this money: it seemed silly not to spend a bit on herself, and nice Laverne Collins from the Big Rock Bay pub had explained carefully how to do it over the phone from Carter’s—Carter Electrical, in the nearest town. She and Isabelle Bell from the motel had both offered to drive Harriet in to choose a set, actually, but they were both very busy, it would have been taking advantage, so she’d said quickly that she’d had a brochure in the mail and knew which one she wanted. So Laverne had immediately explained about ringing up, and be sure to ask for Jack in person, if that dim Jason answers the phone just insist you want to speak to Jack, dear, and that Mandy was hopeless, all she thought about was her hair and nails, or the latest row with the boyfriend, don’t take her word for anything, dear.

    Jack Carter in person had turned up to install the TV, plus, incidentally, the DVD-cum-video player he’d talked Harriet into buying with it, plus—incidentally but not coincidentally, she decided—his nephew Ralph, who worked for his dad at Blockbuster. If she couldn’t get into town they had a regular service for their outlying customers, see? You just hadda fill in the form. Harriet had obediently filled in the form—why not? And rather weakly thanked Ralph for the printout of new titles he thought she might like and the assurance that she could look them up on the Internet, see, that was their website on the print-out, and if she didn’t have a computer Uncle Jack could sell her one at a really good price! Well, heck, they were both so pleasant and kind that it didn’t matter that they had an eye on the main chance, did it? And it must be very hard to make a living in a small country town selling electronic gear or hiring out DVDs, ’cos it wouldn’t take very long for everyone to have a digital TV set and everything, and likewise to have seen what titles of the new DVDs they wanted to see.

    Which, Harriet reflected later, could surely not be very many: they were nearly all horribly violent action things. Computer-generated action, these days: totally unrealistic. She’d once sat through one of these epics with Jimbo. Far from being taken in by it, he’d pointed out just how they’d done this, that or the other unlikely effect. The hero leaping off, not even the roofs, but the sides of large buildings, that sort of thing. But see, Bruce Lee, he always done his own stunts, his movies were real! And Jackie Chan (or maybe Chong, Harriet couldn’t have sworn to it), he was okay, too. Not so much the new ones, but the old ones, they were really keen. She had no idea who these gentlemen were but received the intel gratefully, nodding absorbedly. Jimbo had happily reported to his parents that Aunty Harrie was really cool. Trisha and Steve subsequently apologising—severally—for the infliction.

    To celebrate the installation of the new TV and player Hughie came over with his treasured DVD of a documentary about lizards. It was quite a recent one. See, it had quite a good coverage, really, from Komodo dragons on down, only it was a bit disappointing, because just when you were getting really interested they started cutting in bits from a zoo and it wasn’t the same as seeing them in the wild. After watching it, Harriet had to agree. It started off really promisingly, and then tailed off into lots of zoo shots. Never mind, it was interesting. But it made you realise just how good those BBC David Attenborough nature documentaries actually were. Only, somehow it also made you wonder just how much of them were also—well, possibly not faked up, not by the BBC. But, um... doctored?

    Harriet had now realised that up here the Antipodean summer was simply the wet season, or the monsoon, even more accurately—so why didn’t they come right out and say so? Nobody did, however, though a few old hands like Hughie, who’d lived even further north, did refer to it as “the Wet”. The misnamed summer waned into what was autumn further south, the humidity lessened, and the weather improved greatly. Strangely, Isabelle and Scott Bell didn’t immediately have a huge influx of visitors at the Big Rock Bay Motel, though it was the ideal weather for it. But by Easter they were full again.

    “It’s only one person!” urged Isabelle. “Mr Perkins.”

    Harriet had already said she couldn’t possibly. She looked at the energetic Mrs Bell limply.

    “He’s been before, he’s quite a regular, really, only this year he forgot to book early,” Isabelle explained. “He’s very quiet, he’d be no bother.”

    “But I’m not running a B&B,” said Harriet, very, very faintly. “Could he—could he stay at the pub, Isabelle?”

    Far from dismissing this reference to what was presumably a rival hospitality establishment, Isabelle replied seriously: “No, Laverne’s full up, she’s got a party of Shirleys. They’ve come before, they’re from Victoria, you see, it’s not the whole branch, these ones are just friends.”

    “Shirleys?” faltered Harriet.

    “Yes: you know, Harriet! Shirleys!” said young Mrs Bell brightly. “It’s a club. Like the Lions.”

    “Oh, yes,” said Harriet very, very feebly. “Of course: Shirleys.”

    “Mm, and—well, there’s her sitting-room, of course, it has got a sofa-bed, and if it was an emergency—only the thing is, Mr Perkins wouldn’t like it.”

    Laverne’s sitting-room was lovely, what was she on about? Harriet stared.

    “Well, he’s a bit old-fashioned.”

    It dawned. Surrounded by Shirleys! No doubt all the vigorous, ebullient, middle-aged clubby sort that got a few drinks inside them and cackled and shrieked their heads off: how terrifying for him! A typical Aussie male wimp, clearly. “I see. How old is he?” asked Harriet drily.

    Isabelle brightened horribly—oh, help! She should just have kept her mouth shut, now she thought she was interested in having Mr Perkins as a guest! “Well, I dunno exactly: middle-aged.”

    Middle-aged? Ben had been middle-aged! Blimmin’ Sean Nesbitt had been middle-aged!

    “Very quiet,” added Isabelle quickly.

    Oh. Well, that didn’t sound... But she didn’t want a paying guest and she didn’t need one!

    “It’s only for the weekend. You’d hardly notice he was there,” urged Isabelle. “And we’d manage the payment through the motel, don’t worry about that! We’ve done it before with Laverne, we just take a booking fee. You won’t have to cope with credit cards or like that! You aren’t doing anything, are you?”

    What a pity she hadn’t booked to fly off to—to Club Med Noumea, or—or better, the one in Tahiti! Could she lie and say she was going away, and then just slide off to Trisha and Steve’s?

    “Um, no, but—”

    That seemed to settle it and somehow, Harriet could never say just how, she’d agreed to have the quiet, middle-aged Mr Perkins for the whole of the Easter break. Oh, God.

    ... “How’s he gonna get here?” asked Hughie, having shaken his head over her account of her plight.

    “Um—I dunno, Hughie.”

    “Drive, I s’pose,” he answered himself.

    As there was no bus this was a reasonable supposition. Though there was a local story that the film company that had used Big Rock Bay as their location, in the bye and bye, had flown people in, in a helicopter. They had also had limos but this hadn’t been nearly as exciting, apparently.

    “Well, he’ll have to leave it outside, you haven’t got a garage,” concluded Hughie brilliantly.

    “Um, yes, I mean, no, I haven’t.”

    “Don’t let him park it under them trees,” he warned.

    Harriet looked at him in horror. Were the trees along the apology for a drive about to fall down? And kill someone, most likely her? “Why not?” she faltered.

    “The ruddy birds’ll drop muck all over it. You been feeding the buggers?” he demanded sternly.

    Harriet reddened. “Only some stale bread,” she muttered. “Little parrots. They’re very...” She met Hughie’s stern, bulging blue eye. “...pretty,” she muttered.

    Hughie heaved himself to his feet. “Rosellas. Ruddy pests,” he stated definitively. “I’ll come over. When’s ’e due?”

    Harriet winced but replied obediently that Mr Perkins was due on the Thursday afternoon.

    “Be retired, then. Mind you, could get a hire car in Brizzie: drive up. –See ya,” he grunted, going.

    Harriet just sat there limply in her lounge-room amidst a litter of empty beer cans and pizza plates. –Homemade, there was no delivery to Sandy Cove. It had received the accolade from Hughie: almost as good as a real one.

    She was using the main bedroom. She’d hesitated over it but then decided she would use it: it was kind of… in Ben’s memory, really. After quite some time, moving very slowly, she went and looked dully at the smaller bedroom. It’d have to do. It and its faded candlewick bedspreads. On second thoughts she fetched the little fan from Jimbo’s sleepout, and positioned it carefully, at a judicious distance from the one the room already had. She looked at the result sadly: she was quite sure the poor man’d be expecting a proper ceiling fan, plus and air-con, like they had at the motel. The relative plethora of fans in the house was explained by the fact that Trisha, after her first night at Ben’s the first time they’d come up, had insisted on buying one for Jimbo’s room, one for the spare room, and one for the kitchen. During the expedition which had also included such items as marg, sliced bread and instant coffee from the supermarket—yes. The main bedroom, astonishingly enough, had already had a fan. A metal one. It looked about as old as Ben, actually, but Steve, having inspected it narrowly, had announced with relief that it had been re-wired, and was perfectly okay.

    … As to what she was gonna feed Mr Perkins on! Isabelle had thought, briskly, that there was no reason he shouldn’t get his main meals at the pub. Which of course directly contradicted her point about the Shirleys, but Harriet hadn’t pointed this out to her. One visit to discover the bar full of shrieking, cackling, permed and hair-dyed, overdressed and over-made-up matrons, and he’d be out of there like a shot—quite.

    Mr Perkins turned out to be middle-aged and quiet, all right. A little, pale man in the neatest grey cotton slacks and pale grey cotton-knit short-sleeved shirt Harriet had ever seen. Even his sneakers, sparkling new, looked neat. As did his gold-rimmed specs. Probably very expensive specs, actually: he didn’t, on the whole, look short of a few bucks and his car, which luckily she remembered to warn him not to park under the trees, was a BMW. He thanked her very politely for putting him up, though as he’d already written her a polite note thanking her there was really no need to do so, and assured her that he’d be perfectly comfortable in the “guest” bedroom. No, he didn’t mind that there was no ensuite—it was quite homey, really, wasn’t it?

    Harriet left him to his unpacking of his two neat, pale grey suitcases, and tottered off to the kitchen reflecting somewhat wildly that “quiet” was the understatement of the year. What Mr Perkins was, she decided, sitting down limply at the kitchen table, was meek. Why on earth Isabelle hadn’t just said so—! She wouldn’t have been worried at all! –No, the word wouldn’t be in the cheerful, managing young Mrs Bell’s vocabulary. But meek was what he was, all right.

    She was just looking limply at the vegetables she’d chopped for dinner and wondering if the meek Mr Perkins was a vegetarian, when Hughie burst in through the back door, panting. “Sorry I’m late!” he gasped. “Is ’e all right?”

    Harriet smiled weakly. “Mm. Meek.”

    “Eh? Aw, I getcha! That’s okay, then!” he said cheerfully, investigating the fridge. “Good!” He got a coldie out. “I better stay, just to make sure,” he decided, snapping it open.

    Harriet smiled at him. “You could stay in any case, Hughie.”

    Looking gratified, Hughie sat down at the table and inspected what she’d chopped so far. “Stir-fry, eh? Good-oh. Better do plenny of meat,” he ordered.

    Feebly Harriet got up and got two days’ worth of steak out of the fridge.

    “Could just do it on the barbie?” he suggested, brightening.

    “No, it’s for stir-fries,” replied Harriet firmly.

    “Righto, then. Do it all,” ordered Hughie comfortably.

    Feebly Harriet sliced up a whole kilo of steak. Three into a thousand... Help! That was over three hundred grammes each, and that CSIRO diet recipe book that Trisha had forced on her said that two hundred was enough for one person for a main meal! Trisha had also warned her, in fact, that Martine Hawkins’s mum had followed it religiously and it had given her gout and her doctor had said it was too high in protein, so not to have protein twice a day when it said to. Harriet hadn’t intended to, she never fancied that much protein per day anyway, but she’d agreed meekly. Some of the recipes were very nice, and they were low in salt and very low in sugar, which was good, but they also included some expensive and fancy ingredients which either the nearest supermarket wouldn’t stock or somehow she, H. Harrison, would never manage to have in her cupboard at the same time, because that was the sort of person she was. Or both—yep! But she was more or less following its stir-fry directions.

    Mr Perkins turned out not to be a vegetarian, so that was one thing off her mind—though on reflection, the efficient Isabelle would undoubtedly have asked if he was before ever accepting a booking from him—and over the stir-fry, which he praised politely and as far as Harriet could tell, genuinely, he brightened up—perhaps the accompanying bottle of Shiraz had something to do with this—and told Harriet and Hughie a lot about negative gearing and his three rental properties back home. Harriet understood about one word in twenty of this rigmarole and to judge by the look on his face Hughie did, too—though you couldn’t always tell, with Hughie. One of the tenants was the reason Mr Perkins—please call him Reg—had forgotten all about making his Easter booking this year. No, not that sort of trouble, none of his tenants, he was thankful to say, ever caused him any problems, but poor Mrs Bligh had been burgled, and had been in such a state of shock—! Well, she was getting on, now, she’d had the flat for over twenty years—and never a breath of trouble, she’d even managed most capably when the hot water cistern gave way, though of course he’d reimbursed her for everything, it was the landlord’s responsibility, not the tenant’s. –Broken into while she was out at the shops, would you believe! Broad daylight. She’d locked the security door, of course, but the burglar had jimmied it—torn it right off its hinges, actually.

    At this point Hughie had grunted: “I wouldn’t call it a security door, then,” but Harriet had bitten firmly down upon her lower lip and managed not to laugh.

    So of course he had rushed right round, the poor old dear was in such a state! And the police—severely—had not been very helpful. It was no use telling an elderly person to get a security system put in, because in the first place they were always going wrong—no-one in the block took any notice if your alarm went off, Mr and Mrs Petersons’ was always going off in the middle of the night—and in the second place, elderly people couldn’t cope with the things: poor dear Mrs Bligh was no good at all with numbers. Though she was still very bright and with-it, and managed remarkably. –Eighty-six, he revealed on a proud note. Well, she’d have to go into a home sooner or later, he supposed, but in the meantime, why give her another hassle to cope with? He’d talked it all over with her son, Bert, he lived up in the Dandenongs, it was a good three hours to his mother’s place on the other side of the city, but of course he’d come right away, and they’d decided to put in a security camera. And of course the very best security door available, much, much stronger.

    Hughie was looking dubious, so Harriet said quickly it was very thoughtful of him. At which Mr Perkins beamed and congratulated her all over again on her stir-fry.

    The rest of the weekend was all like that. Reg Perkins remained chatty and meek, and completely harmless, and Hughie remained dubious and—um—sort of looming, really.

    “Good riddance,” he noted as the spanking-clean BMW—Mr Perkins had sacrificed a large part of his Monday morning cleaning it—disappeared down the drive at last.

    Harriet sighed. “He was harmless, Hughie. Meek, like I said.”

    He sniffed. “I dare say. You don’t wanna let that Isabelle boss you around,” he advised for the Nth time.

    “It’s all right, it was just a one-off. And it gave the poor little man a happy holiday, I don’t begrudge it, Hughie.”

    Hughie sniffed again. “You wait,” he produced.

    Harriet just laughed, but of course Hughie was right. And the episode of Mr Perkins was the beginning of Harriet Harrison’s career as a B&B keeper.

    “Look,” said Trisha over the phone in huge exasperation, as her sister reported that Mr and Mrs Collins (no relation to Laverne), plus their very special pillows, plus their very special saucepan for his very special breakfast muck, had finally pushed off: “tell the ruddy woman you’ve got all Ben’s shares, you don’t need the money, Harrie!”

    Harriet hadn’t told anyone at Big Rock Bay the details of Ben’s legacy. No-one seemed to be aware of them. It was partly that she was afraid that Laverne would be jealous if she found out. As it was, she seemed perfectly happy that Ben had left the house to Harriet, and very ready to continue being friends with her. But you never knew: if she heard about all those shares she might turn very bitter—after all, he had been sleeping with her for years, off and on, hadn’t he? And Isabelle, though kind and well-meaning, was a terrible gossip, it’d be all over the district if she mentioned it to her.

    “No,” she said faintly.

    “Well, then, tell her that you’re managing okay as you are!” said Trisha desperately.

    “She doesn’t listen. I suppose it’s only a few times a year, really.”

    Trisha took a deep breath. “Harrie, the woman mentioned herself that they take a booking fee, didn’t she? They’re doing ruddy well out of it for no effort, and you’ve got all the aggro!”

    “Don’t be silly, she thinks she’s doing me a favour. Well, the Collinses were a bit of a pain but Mr and Mrs Robinson were okay. And Mr Perkins, of course.”

    “You’re making a rod for your back,” warned Trisha.

    “Mm. Well, if it gets too bad I—I’ll tell her I’ve just come into some money. Um, an investment matured or something.”

    Trisha sighed but left it at that. In any case she had something important to tell her and if she didn’t do it now, she’d lose her nerve. “Um, listen... It’s about Kyla.”

    “She hasn’t lost that job at Emco’s, has she?”

    “Eh? Aw, no: nothink like that. Um, she’s gone mad over that Farmer Wants a Wife thingo. –On TV!” she urged as the phone was silent.

    “I haven’t been watching much TV, really, except when Hughie comes over... Is it a soapie?”

    “No, of course not! –Sorry, didn’t mean to shout: she’s been driving us all demented. It’s sort of... Um, a reality show, I s’pose,” ended Trisha dubiously.

    “Ugh!”

    “No, not one of them! It’s very nice, really. They get half a dozen farmers that are bachelors—and how they ever round them up, don’t ask me, because they’re all just ordinary Aussie blokes, not the sort you’d ever think ’ud want to be on TV, let alone about something that intimate! And then they get all the girls to, um, look on the website, I think—yeah, that’d be it, because she had all these ruddy print-outs, she used up all the coloured toner and Steve went ropeable: she didn’t tell him the blimmin’ thing had run out. And they have to send in an application—you know: to take part—and then— Is it the farmer that chooses?” Trisha asked herself. “I think so. Anyway, they end up with some girls short-listed for each guy and they have this big kind of party—it’s a really nice venue, it’d be ideal for an anniversary or a twenty-first—or a wedding, of course! And they have to pick out the ones they like best, um, the best six, I think. They have so many minutes to chat to each one, you see. Mind you, personally I’d be so nervous I wouldn’t be able to think of a thing to say, I mean it really is only a few minutes—and then the guys have to short-list them for a date. Maybe it’s a group date the first time. Anyway, they eventually end up having to choose just one, you see!”

    Harriet rolled her eyes. And do what? Get up her? Marry her out of hand? “This’d be on one or two days’ acquaintance, would it?”

    “No, it’s not that bad: they have, um, I forget; six weeks or six months or somethink to think it over and then they have to go to the girl’s place and ask her out, you see. And then for the big finale they’re all back at the lovely reception place in the country, and they trot out the one they’ve picked and it’s a big surprise!” There was no reaction, and she added lamely: “Um, for the viewers, I mean, Harrie. Um, well, it is silly, I s’pose, and a lot of it’s gotta be faked, ’cos the cameras are at the house and everythink...”

    “Ya don’t say!”

    “Mm. Only it is very nice, and they’re genuine blokes—really lovely guys. Quite good-looking, too.”

    Oh, God. “I see,” said Harriet in a voice of doom.

    Trisha sighed down the phone. “Yeah. She’s gone crazy over it, Harrie! She’s applied for all of the next lot! I said to her that’d never work, they’re looking for a girl who’s keen on one guy in particular, only she ignored me completely!”

    Fancy that. “Well, I’m sorry, Trisha, but it’ll blow ov—”

    “No, you don’t understand! She sent them all in and she hasn’t heard back, but she won’t believe she isn’t gonna be picked!” she wailed.

    Presumably she would when the letters of rejection arrived. Six letters, presumably, if there were six blokes in question. “It’ll wear off, Trisha, it’s only a fantasy.”

    “It’s real to her,” said Kyla’s mother bitterly.

    Harriet winced. The more so as that had been her best shot. “Mm. I’m sorry, Trisha, I dunno what to say.”

    Trisha could be heard blowing her nose. “No, well, you’ve never been a mother of a girl that age... Nor have I, before, actually. And it’s no use thinking I’ll know what to say, ’cos why should I?”

    Why, indeed? –Ooh, help! “Steve, was this?”

    “Yes! He’s been useless, Harrie!” she wailed, bursting into tears.

    Ooh, heck. Steve, of course, was as decent as you could get. But that sort of thing was not your average Aussie bloke’s bag, and Steve Drinkwater was nothing if not average.

    “Mm—don’t cry, Trisha. It’s not a man’s thing: if you can’t come out with the right thing to say, of course he can’t!”

    “He’s not even trying! He thinks it’s a joke!”

    Shit. “Um, that’s a male thing: when they can’t cope with emotions they get dismissive.”

    Trisha blew her nose. “It’s not helping, though! And it’s not a male thing these days, I mean it doesn’t have to be: the guys on the show aren’t like that!”

    “Really?” said Harriet more drily than she’d intended.

    “No!” There was a short silence. “Um, well, they are a lot more... articulate, I s’pose is the word,” Trisha admitted. “They all speak quite nicely to the girls they don’t want. And some of them are really quite thoughtful. But, um, actually I wouldn’t say they’d be all that good at emotional stuff, really.”

    “No. Um, well, I don’t see there’s anything you can say to her. She’ll just have to get over it. Um, if she gets worse,” she offered desperately, “would you like to send her up here?”

    Help! Trisha leapt at the offer like the proverbial drowning man.

    Harriet hung up and tottered outside. George was sitting on the back step so she sat down beside him.

    “That your sister?” he asked.

    “Yeah. She’s in a tizz-wozz because Kyla wants to be on some stupid TV thing: The Farmer Wants a Wife.”

    “Aw, yeah. Seen that,” said George placidly.

    “Is it mad?”

    He appeared to think this over carefully. “Nah, wouldn’t say that. Faked up, mind you, dare say those jokers have to say their piece sixteen times before they get it right. And that lady at the beginning, she kisses everyone on the cheek and then they haveta kiss her back: never seen anyone do that, not when it’s six blokes she isn’t even supposed to know.”

    Harriet swallowed. “No.” Kissing them on the cheek? For Pete’s sake, this was Australia! Well, that was presumably it, I,T, for Kyla’s generation: from now on all the dim little bimbos—the future mothers of the race, yeah—would be expecting the tall, silent, long-legged Aussie types to kiss them on the cheek on being introduced!

    “Have they got long legs?” she asked abruptly.

    “Eh? Well, she has—the lady, I mean. And them new jeans—down to here,” he said with a sniff, gesturing vaguely at his flat midriff. Harriet winced. “But if ya mean the blokes, yeah, s’pose they have. Though most blokes’d look taller in them high-heeled fancy cowboy boots,” he added thoughtfully.

    At this crack Harriet, alas, broke down and laughed until she cried.

    “Yeah,” concluded George, grinning. “Bloody barmy, it is. Ya don’t wanna go near it, Harriet.”

    Harriet wiped her eyes with the back of her hand. “Too right! Only it isn’t me, unfortunately, it’s Kyla.”

    There was a short pause.

    “Coming up here to get over it, is she?” asked the sapient George.

    Harriet swallowed. “It sounds very much like it, yes.”

    Mr and Mrs Connaught—call them Peter and Janyce—had decided on the spur of the moment to get away from the Melbourne winter, and were so grateful that Miss Harrison could put them up! –Harriet, of course, dear! And she wasn’t to worry about them at all: their wants were very simple.

    Harriet showed them to the spare room and tottered out to the kitchen, where Hughie was sitting at the table looking grim. “Very simple wants,” she croaked.

    “Right, goddit,” he agreed grimly.

    She sat down limply. “She asked if the beds have got electric blankets,” she croaked, after quite some time.

    He sniffed.

    “And he asked if I had air-con.”

    Hughie looked thoughtful. Finally he replied: “Was this right after?”

    “Right after— Oh! The electric blankets thing? Yes, but I don’t think he was taking the Mick, unfortunately.”

    “Nah, ’e wouldn’t be. Drivin’ a Volvo,” he grunted.

    Possibly this remark was highly unfair to Volvo owners, but Harriet found she was nodding hard in agreement with it.

    “Well, I wouldn’t bother about tea tonight, Harriet, ’cos whatever ya do, it’ll be wrong,” he concluded.

    “I thought a frittata,” she said limply.

    “That eggy thing? That’s good. Only what’ve eggs got in them?”

    “In them? Oh! Cholesterol,” she conceded glumly.

    Hughie just nodded, and looked into space for a while. The conclusion was, he could put a notice on the kitchen door for her saying “Private” but it wouldn’t work, because dames like that, they never took no notice of notices.

    So for tea that night Harriet, Peter and Janyce all had precisely what Janyce (not J,A,N,I.C,E, Harriet, dear) thought they should. Skinned chicken breasts, bought by Janyce at the supermarket on their way here, done in the pan with just a light sprinkling of spray-on olive oil, Harriet didn’t own any such thing but fortunately Janyce had bought a can on their way here, steamed broccoli and steamed carrots, Janyce capably disinterring an actual steamer which Ben must have bought at some stage but Harriet hadn’t been aware was even in the cupboard, and a half cupful of plain boiled rice each, it was a pity that Harriet didn’t have a rice cooker but she was sure the whitegoods store in the town could supply one. No, Peter, that was your daily starch allowance. We won’t have the salt on the table, Harriet, dear—snatching both salt and pepper off it—because of Peter’s blood pressure. There’s salt in bread, Peter, and you’ve had your wholemeal allowance for today, remember!

    At one stage back there Harriet had imagined she could work in the casual remark that the town with its supermarket wasn’t on their direct route from Melbourne and in fact was a good 80 K away, but at the point where Janyce capably produced the supermarket docket for reimbursement purposes she definitely gave that one away.

    Next day Hughie moved the kitchen table and four dining chairs into the sitting-room, but although Janyce was pleased to approve—much nicer, what a good idea, thank you so much, Hugh, it does help to have a man about the place, doesn’t it, Harriet? (titter)—it didn’t of course keep her out of the kitchen. And it certainly didn’t keep her from answering the phone. Well, it might be Susannah with an emergency about little Elliott, or Sondra worried about their Tory: she was going through a phase.

    “It’s your niece, dear: she seems to be rather upset,” she cooed, as Harriet panted into the kitchen too late to pick up.

    Kyla was at the airport. That was, the nearest one to them, not Brisbane airport. “There’s no taxis, Aunty Harrie!” she wailed. Harriet winced. This was because to call it an airport was to dignify it considerably—considerably. Airstrip, was more like it. True, it had a terminal building, of sorts. Scott Bell from Big Rock Bay Motel had kindly explained that what it was, see, was a tin shed from Mitre 10, one of the big size, but it didn’t look bad, they’d put a few pot plants in it. Harriet had asked if there were any batts and after some bitter animadversion on the subject of ruddy pests, ruin your garden and the people at the ecolodge had been going spare, the minute they got some decent-looking fruit on their trees the ruddy things swooped, and the flaming government was mad to make them a protected species, the bloody things were taking over the entire country, they’d got as far as the botanic garden in Melbourne, ya realise that?—after this, then, it was eventually sorted out that she hadn’t meant that, she’d meant ceiling batts—Pink Batts, Scott. The answer to that being: “Aw! Pink Batts! Yeah, they bunged a few in. Well, the ceiling. Dunno about the walls, mind you.”

    Luckily today was a lovely mild day and the humidity was—well, it was always humid in Queensland. But it was low for here. So Kyla wasn’t actually in danger of dying from heatstroke while her aunt figured out some way to collect her. Why in God’s name hadn’t Steve at least given her the dough for a hire-car from Bri— Hang on.

    “Kyla,” said Harriet grimly—help, she sounded just like Mum!—“do your parents know you’ve come up here?”

    This produced a burst of sobs and the eventual answer: “No, but—”

    Harriet didn’t listen to the buts, she merely said: “It’s all right, I’ll ring them. Just wait there, I’ll get someone to collect you.”

    Funnily enough Janyce hadn’t tactfully gone away during this conversation. As Harriet hung up she cooed: “Oh, dear. At the airport, is she?”

    “Mm.”

    “Not Brisbane, I hope, dear?”

    “No, the local one. It’s just outside the township—you know, where the supermarket is.” She waited but gee, there was no offer to nip over there in the Volvo and collect her. Fancy that.

    So she fell back on Hughie. It seemed a bit mean to ask him, especially in the middle of a working day, but then, she did feed him quite often.

    “No worries! I’ll just nip over and collect you.”

    “No, um, the thing is, Janyce has given me this sort of casserole recipe, I mean, it’s got skinless chicken in it but you do do it in the oven and, um, you have to marinate it—”

    “You’re not gonna waste Ben’s good wine on muck for them?” he gasped.

    “No, I let Janyce buy a bottle off Laverne. I mean, she made me reimburse her, of course, but, um, well, it’s this year’s but it’ll probably be okay. Peter’s allowed one glassful.”

    “As well as whatcha put in the casserole? Blow me down flat,” he invited drily. “Can’tcha just leave it to sit, though? I mean, isn’t that what marinading is?”

    “No, it has to be turned three times.”

    “Where is she?” he demanded instantly.

    “Um, well, they have gone out for the day, they want to see that place that does the afternoon teas with the little parrots.”

    “Rosellas. Ruddy pests,” said Hughie automatically.

    “Yeah. But she’ll be sure to know, if I don’t turn it properly.”

    “Don’t see how,” he said dubiously.

    Harriet sighed. “Nor do I, but it’ll be the wrong colour or the wrong taste or something!”

    “Yeah, righto,” he said amiably. “I’ll get the kid. You sit tight. Want any shopping?”

    There were lots of things she wanted, but she was pretty sure Janyce and Peter would refuse to eat any of them. “Um, well, just some milk and ice cream, thanks very much, Hughie, if you wouldn’t mind. Um, skim milk, she only lets him have that one-percent stuff, or the special cholesterol-lowering stuff if they’ve got it, but she reckons they don’t stock it. And WeightWatchers’ ice cream. Um, Kyla’ll help you. Um, and let her buy anything she wants, okay? I’ll pay you back.”

    “Rats! See ya!” replied Hughie breezily, hanging up.

    Gulping, Harriet put her receiver down slowly. She had no idea what Hughie’s income was, but although he owned the usual large, shiny Australian electrical and electronic appliances he lived pretty simply. How much was Madam Kyla’s taste in supermarket dainties gonna set the poor man back? Not to mention all the bathroom things she’d undoubtedly decide she needed. And if she went and bought tampons or, frightful thought, vaginal deodorant in front of him the poor man’d probably die of embarrassment!

    Unfortunately she hadn’t got the number of the airstrip’s phone off Kyla—or had she been ringing on her mobile? Dubiously Harriet tried that number but it went to voice mail. She hung up glumly, not leaving a message. In any case, she reflected, there was no way she could possibly repeat to the kid what Ben had said on the subject of vaginal deodorants. Salutary though the intel would have been. Scathing, was what it had been. Also very, very explicit.

    Gloomily she unwrapped the kilo of chicken thighs. Oh, Jesus, they still had their skin on them! Janyce’s annoyed aside of “All I could get” now began to make sense. She couldn’t sit down at the table because Hughie had of course removed it to the lounge-room. Gloomily she got out a sharp knife—probably a vegetable knife, Ben would undoubtedly have said it was the wrong knife, but no way was she going near his razor-sharp skinning knives—and, standing at the bench, began to tackle the skin. And all that fat under the skin.

    Kyla was very red-eyed and tumbled into her aunt’s arms with a fresh burst of tears, but as Hughie at the same time was producing armfuls of bulging supermarket bags from the back of his ute Harriet wasn’t too worried. The more so as, Kyla having mopped her eyes and blown her nose, she then produced another supermarket bag from the driving compartment with the remark: “The ice cream’s in this one. It should be all right: I made them wrap it in newspaper.”

    “Them,” corrected Hughie with a wink.

    Grimly Kyla added: “I got some of that really nice cherry one for you, Aunty Harrie: Hughie says you’ve been letting that awful woman bully you!”

    “Um, well, it’s only for a few days, really... Cherry ice cream would be lovely, Kyla, but, um, the fridge has only got a small freezing compartment.”

    Poor Kyla’s face fell but Hughie, declaring breezily: “Eat it now. Come on!” led the way firmly into the house.

    “Oughta get a decent freezer, ya know,” he said mildly as they unpacked the bags.

    “Yes,” agreed Kyla immediately. “We’ll go into town tomorrow.”

    “Kyla, we haven’t got transport,” said Harriet limply.

    “No worries, I’ll take you,” said Hughie firmly. “Me nephew Joel’s comin’ over, anyway. Godda meet him in the morning, might as well take you in, too.” He looked round him in bewilderment. “Where the flamin’ Hell are the pudding plates?”

    “Janyce moved them,” said Harriet wearily.

    “Honestly, Aunty Harrie!” cried Kyla, perking up amazingly. “Why do you let these people bully you?” Busily she found the pudding bowls and, first setting out three for them, put the rest back in their proper place.

    The remainder of the day went pretty much like that. Kyla remained managing and slightly scornful, and competently undid everything that Janyce had done round the place, though not, having been wised up by Hughie, moving the table and chairs back into the kitchen. And Harriet remained glumly apologetic. Dinner consisted pretty much of what Janyce had ordained except that Kyla made a side salad of small beetroot (tinned, but quite nice), burghul, grated carrot and chopped coriander for her and her aunt, and opened a tin of lychees to go with the WeightWatchers’ ice cream for her and her aunt. Naturally Janyce unerringly identified the burghul as couscous and rather extravagant, dear, and, naturally, was told loftily it wasn’t, it was burghul and she might know it as bulgar wheat; and condemned the lychees as: “Those aren’t in heavy syrup, are they? It was a nice thought, dear, but though fruit’s always nice, no-one needs that much sugar in their diet—it’s hundreds of calories, you know; and then, at your aunt’s age, one has to think of diabetes, we’re none of us immune, dear!” (Titter). To which Kyla replied stolidly: “Just for once won’t hurt.”

    As Kyla volunteered to do the dishes—looking hard at Janyce as she said it—Harriet tottered off to bed early. Oddly enough she felt exhausted. Though grateful to Kyla for her efforts.

    Most unfortunately things went downhill on the morrow. It started off okay: Hughie turned up early as promised, in fact just as Janyce was pointing out to Kyla that white toast wasn’t a good habit to get into, your aunt needs the roughage at her age, dear, and we know you young people think that your jogging and so forth will work it off—looking hard at Kyla’s gear, to wit, one abbreviated yellow singlet and one pair of skin-tight royal-blue lycra shorts—but you’ll regret it in later life (titter). So they were able to get away okay. And they made it to the airstrip in good time to meet Hughie’s nephew’s plane, and the plane wasn’t late, so that was okay, too. In fact at the sight of Joel Harriet began to think that things were really looking up, because he was very good-looking, tall, and long-legged. In spanking-new pale jeans, a casual cotton checked shirt open at the neck to show a portion of his muscular chest and incidentally his very nice neck, and a genuine, Outback-style straw cowboy hat. Kyla went bright pink at the sight of him, and no wonder!

    No, he didn’t turn out to be gay—but by the end of the day Harriet had begun to think it might have been better if he was. He struck her as very amiable and easy-going, and happily came to the whitegoods store with them and co-operated in helping his uncle pick out a freezer and in stopping Jack Carter from selling Harriet the largest and dearest model in the shop. Too big for the kitchen—what were those measurements, again, Uncle Hughie? Yeah, too big. But he ignored—completely ignored, in fact—Kyla’s intel that an upright model would be more convenient and this one had elegant lines that would complement the charming refurbished old-model refrigerator that had belonged to Uncle Ben. It didn’t help that his uncle put in: “Wouldn’t call it refurbished. Them upright ones are no good, Harriet, don’t keep stuff properly cold, ya want a proper chest freezer.”

    By the time the freezer had been chosen and Jack Carter had promised to bring it over this evening without fail, possibly influenced by Hughie’s volunteering himself and his nephew to help with the lifting, it was more than time for lunch, so they decided they’d better have some. Then the rot really set in. Harriet had discovered quite a nice little café, Gloria’s, though run by a woman called Bev, not Gloria, and she’d sort of envisaged going there and had unwisely praised the place to Kyla. Hughie vetoed this idea. “Nah. Too poncy.”

    “Aunty Harrie likes it!” cried Kyla crossly.

    “This the place where they got all the doilies?” asked Joel of his uncle with friendly interest.

    “Yeah,” he grunted. “Under all them cakes—mind you, they taste like sawdust, dunno what she puts in her lamingtons but I wouldn’t feed them to a bloody rosella, meself—ya wanna watch these two, seen them feeding the ruddy pests with me own eyes,” he warned by the by—“and under the sandwiches. And no decent sausage rolls.”

    “Hasn’t she?” said Joel unemotionally to Harriet.

    “Um, well, no, I mean, I’ve never seen any sausage— But do you want them, Hughie?”

    “Only if they’re decent, and that dump doesn’t sell them, see? Fish and chips,” he decreed.

    “Ugh!” cried Kyla in disgust. “On a day like this?”

    Hughie looked at her in genuine surprise. “What’s wrong with it?”

    “Yeah, what’s wrong with it?” drawled Joel.

    It was apparent even to a mere aunt that he was taking the Mick. Poor Kyla went bright pink again, but this time not for the same reason. “It’s too humid for hot, greasy food!” she snapped.

    “Mick Doulton’s chips aren’t greasy,” said Hughie—mildly but sort of... definitely. Harriet eyed her niece uneasily.

    “All chips in this country are soused in high-cholesterol animal fats, they come like that!” she snapped.

    “Rats. Come on, it’s this way. You need something solid in your stomach, Harriet, ya never had much breakfast, didja?”

    “She doesn’t need chips soaked in bad fat with all that starch and salt!” cried Kyla loudly.

    “I could just have a few chips and some fish,” said Harriet feebly. “Um, does he do grilled fish, Hughie?”

    “Dunno. You can just leave the batter if ya don’t like it.”

    “Look, you two can stuff yourselves on muck that’ll harden your arteries if you like, we're going to Gloria’s!” shouted Kyla with tears in her eye.

    “All right. Meetcha back at the car in twenny minutes,” said Hughie amiably.

    “Make it half an hour, he’s gotta shove ’em in the fryer, remember,” drawled Joel.

    “Okay, half an hour.” And with that Hughie forged off. Joel followed him, not giving the ladies a second glance—not even a sardonic one.

    “Where is it?” said Kyla to her aunt, breathing heavily through flared nostrils.

    “Um—back this way.”

    Gloria’s not only had paper doilies under all its cakes and sandwiches, when the girl who was waiting on brought their cold drinks she set the glasses down on small paper doilies as well. Personally Harriet felt it was the last bloody straw. She could barely choke down a strange sandwich of tough sun-dried tomatoes, hardish pressed beef, very dry grated carrot, horridly hard and chewy—thin little sticks, probably done with one of those grater attachments that expensive food-processors had—and what might have been avocado if you’d examined the faint greenish smear forensically. The bread was focaccia bread, and the sandwich had been chosen by those on offer by Kyla, very pleased to find they actually had it. There was probably almost as much starch in it, Harriet reflected, chewing valiantly, as there would be in a small helping of chips. And certainly more than in just a few chips nicked off Hughie’s pile, which was all she’d been intending to have. Kyla had chosen the same mixture for herself, the other choices offering ham, which she decided had too much salt in it, or tinned tuna, which was condemned as ordinary: she chewed fiercely and silently for some time, finally declaring: “That wasn’t bad. I like sun-dried tomatoes.”

    “Very tasty,” said Harriet faintly.

    And that, alas, was to be the last thing Kyla approved of for the rest of the day.

    Dinner consisted largely of a shouting-match between her and Janyce—or it would have been if bloody Janyce hadn’t suddenly switched tack and gone all superior, deciding: “I suppose we have to make allowances for her. It’s a trying age, isn't it?” At which Kyla rushed out in a storm of sobs.

    Since the Connaughts were, of course, in the spare room, Kyla was sharing Harriet’s. Hughie had helpfully put the stretcher in there for her. Last night Kyla had used it, refusing firmly to listen to a suggestion that she might like the bed instead, but when Harriet, abandoning her scarce-touched plate, went in there to check on her, she was face down on the bed, sobbing. Oh, dear.

    “Don’t cry, Kyla,” she said weakly, sitting down beside her and touching her shoulder gingerly.

    “He—never—even—looked—me!” gulped Kyla.

    Well, he had looked, but not with anything approaching interest. Not as if he saw her—no.

    “I think he’s quite a lot a lot older than you,” said Harriet cautiously, not pretending she didn’t know who was meant.

    Kyla just sobbed.

    Eventually the word “farmer” was discerned. Ooh, help!

    “Um,” she said, swallowing hard, “I really don’t think that farm life would suit you, Kyla. I mean, you love the city, don’t you? The—the mall, and—and everything.”

    Kyla sobbed something about suburbs and not city, and... not a real mall?

    “Y—um, I don’t suppose Trisha’s mall is much like an American one, but it’s flasher than that one near Mum’s old place. Very nice, really,” said Harriet without hope. What else could she say, for Pete’s sake? “Um, well, when I say city, I suppose I really mean the—the standard sort of life most Sydneysiders lead. Living in the suburbs and going further in towards the CBD to work.”

    “I could work on a farm! Those girls never done anything I couldn’t do!” she cried, lifting a swollen, teary face.

    “What did they do?” asked Harriet feebly.

    Forthwith it all tumbled out in a great jumble. Cripes, they must have had a great selection of different types of farm! One idiot had got his girls, she must mean several candidates, branding cattle, and another had his helping to dip sheep—exactly why this entailed wrangling the bloody things manually wasn’t clear. Harriet had only ever seen this operation on TV, but it had merely consisted of previously herding the sheep into a large pen—perhaps yard was the technical term, come to think of it—and getting the dog to chivvy them down a sort of, um, laneway consisting of more of the pen’s fencing, and into the dip. If some didn’t need it you slammed a gate shut on them as they approached and they went another way. Or was that afterwards? Anyway, this slamming of the gate was as close as the actual bodies overseeing the operation had ever got. Apparently these girls had “all” had to do riding a lot (sic), and Kyla could do that!

    Had she ever been on a horse in her life? “Ye-es... Um, these days I think lots of them use motorbikes, don’t they? But, um, I know the wives are expected to muck in if they’re needed, but most of the day they’d be looking after the house and the kids and cooking the meals, even these days, Kyla. And, um, not seeing anybody for weeks on end. You imagine being, well, even a three hours’ drive from the nearest supermarket—“

    “That’s not far!”

    “I know,” said Harriet peaceably, “but three hours to get to town, then at least an hour to do your shopping, and maybe another half hour for a coffee or lunch, well, let’s say a maximum of two hours in town. Then another three hours to get back home. That’s eight hours, all up, and that’s your whole working day gone. You just couldn’t do that more than once a week at most. And lots of farms are much more isolated than that. Sheep and cattle stations, anyway.”

    “I wouldn’t mind that!”

    Harriet sighed. That really had been her best shot.

    Kyla sniffled and blew her nose and looked red and sulky. Harriet just sat there mumchance.

    Finally Kyla announced: “This is pretty isolated, really.”

    Harriet cringed. Not like an Outback cattle station, it wasn’t, for Pete’s sake! “Y— Um—”

    “Say I stay here and help you for a bit, that’ll prove I can stand it!”

    Oh, God.

    Her eyes narrowed. “Then next time they advertise for applications—”

    Oh, God!

    “Shit! I should of seen that coming!” admitted Trisha next day. “Look, Steve’ll come and get her, Harrie, she’s a blimmin’ little nuisance!”

    “No, it’s okay, I don’t mind if she stays on for a bit.”

    “She’ll soon get bored with it, anyway,” said Kyla’s mother in tones of heartfelt relief.

    “Mm. Ruddy Janyce and Peter Connaught have gone, that’s a plus,” she reported.

    “Good. Um, it has sunk in that you’ve got no transport, has it?”

    “Well, um, well, Hughie’s been giving us lifts... I dunno, Trisha. I don’t think she’s seized the implications, yet, really. Though this morning she reckoned she was going down to Big Rock Bay to talk to Isabelle and the exercise’d do her good.”

    “Right. Maybe it’s dawned there are no gyms for a hundred K,” said Kyla’s mother drily.

    Over three hundred, probably: it was well over that from Brizzie. “Mm. Um, couldn’t she do that leg-waving stuff by herself, though?”

    “You’re behind the times, Harrie,” replied Kyla’s mother drily. “It’s not just exercises, these days, it’s using the huge machines. The girls as well.”

    Okay, if she said so. “Mm. Um, you’d better not mention Hughie when you talk to her, Trisha.”

    “She hasn’t been rude to him, has she?” asked Kyla’s mother sharply.

    “No, she’s been very nice to him. Um, no, yesterday,” said Harriet, swallowing hard in spite of herself, “we went with him to pick up his nephew from the airport: he’s gonna be staying with him for a bit. And, um, well, I’m awfully sorry, Trisha, but he looks just like those farmers you described.” She swallowed hard. “Tall, dark and handsome, I’m afraid. And he didn’t take any notice of her at all.”

    The phone was silent. Harriet couldn’t tell if it was an appalled silence, or not. “I—I’d say he’s too old for her anyway, I think he’d be at least thirty,” she added glumly.

    The phone was silent.

    “Are you all right?” asked Harriet in alarm.

    “Yes!” shrieked Trisha, breaking down in helpless laughter. “Price—less! Serve her—right, silly—little—thing!” she gasped.

    Harriet grinned. That was all right, then! “Yeah, it was pretty funny,” she admitted. “Only I think poor Kyla felt it was the last straw.”

    Trisha blew her nose. “Maybe a spell up there’ll help bring her to her senses,” she stated with super-optimism.

    “Well, yeah. I think you’re right and she’ll soon get bored. No malls,” said Harriet with a smile in her voice.

    Kyla’s mother agreed fervently, thanked her all over again, and hung up.

    Harriet went and looked thoughtfully at the timetable that Isabelle had efficiently printed out for her. Something was written on it for next weekend. Grey—what? Grey morons? But they were all grey mor— Oh! Grey nomads! Isabelle had been very annoyed and she couldn’t remember everything she’d said by any means, but the gist of it was that they tried to rip you, i.e. her, Isabelle, and Big Rock Bay Motel, off. Not paying for the camping site, was it? But Isabelle would never even have let them book in without getting the money—or maybe they just drove in. But then she’d never of let them out without getting the money, so...

    Well, okay, grey nomads, so be it. They’d look forward to that, then!

Next chapter:

https://trialsofharrietharrison.blogspot.com/2023/09/grey-nomads.html