Mountain Ash Read online

  ‘Three and a half, Mum.’

  She would not cry. She would not!

  Milly gave her mother one last squeeze then pulled away and ran to Mue. She waved back towards Jodie. ‘See ya, Mum!’

  ‘C’mon, Ashie, put your shirt on and get in the ute. We’ve got miles to be cruisin’ and blokes to be having and you’re holding us up.’ Stacey’s words belied her sympathetic look. ‘She’ll be right. Milly’s as strong as her mother and it is only a couple of nights away.’

  Chicks without kids had no idea, did they? The wrench on your heart, the fact that you wanted to be with your kids all the time and have a break, even though that made no sense. The overriding sense of guilt, guilt, guilt …

  Jodie cast her eye around Mue’s long street. It was quiet. Other than a number of parked cars, there was no sign of anyone around. She quickly stripped off the Wrangler top she was wearing and was down to her skimpy bra just as a BMW turned the corner at the end of the road. Shit! Alex! Jumping into the ute, she yelled to Stace, ‘Get me out of here, quick!’ Grabbing a Driza-Bone coat off the floor she dragged it over her head and scantily clad upper body, then crouched down. She only hoped he hadn’t seen her out the front of Mue’s place. It was a long street. She stayed slumped down until Stacey called out, ‘You can get up now, Ashie, although you might want to put something over those boobs of yours. They’ve just wheeled out the nursing home and the old blokes might swallow their false teeth.’

  Jodie wiggled into her new T-shirt (it was very tight) and sat up. Stace was right. The ute was sitting at the only set of traffic lights in town and waiting to cross the road were a bunch of geriatrics.

  ‘Ah-ha! Hey, girls, Ashie got the Cowgirl Up T-shirt,’ called Stace to the two girls sitting in the back.

  ‘Why,’ said Jodie, ‘what’d you blokes get?’ The two girls, whom Jodie barely knew, grinned and raised a rum can each. On the front of their bright pink T-shirts was written, Cowgirls like it rough.

  Oh good Lord, what have I got myself into?

  ‘And I got,’ Stace turned to show Jodie a shirt that stated, Cowboy hunting, I’m all for jumping … and in tiny little letters, your bones. Stace was grinning wickedly, forgetting she was supposed to be driving the ute. The lights turned green and a bevy of horns blasted out from behind them. ‘Geez Louise, I’ll flash them Ashie’s boobs and then they’ll have a horn!’

  Jodie laughed. ‘I’ve flashed my boobs for the last time this weekend, Stace. I’m patchworking, remember? I don’t think there’s any cowboy or stockman alive who’d be in the least bit tempted to join a sewing bee.’

  ‘A gay one might?’ said Stace. Laughter came from the back seat. ‘Well, he might! There was that Brokeback Mountain dude.’

  ‘Never watched it,’ said one of the girls in the back, swallowing her laughter. ‘I just couldn’t face the fact a hot-looking bloke like that was gunna be wasted.’

  ‘Hardly wasted,’ scoffed Stace.

  ‘Wasted,’ said the second girl in agreement with the first.

  Suddenly an arm came over Jodie’s shoulder to shake her hand. ‘I’m Mel and this here’s Ange, as in short for Angelica.’ Mel collapsed back into the seat in giggles. ‘Like, not.’

  ‘Who says?’ said Ange. ‘I can be good … sometimes.’ She smiled at Jodie, who’d swung around to shake her hand too. ‘That’s one cute little girl you’ve got there,’ she said.

  ‘Yes, her name is Milly. She’s just turned seven,’ said Jodie, trying to smile while inside her tummy knotted. She shouldn’t have left Milly to go on this wild drive that was supposed to be a ‘get away and think’ trip. With these girls it was going to be a ‘get away and drink’ trip. She took a deep breath. Well, she was here now, and there was no going back for days. She just hoped she survived the ride.

  By the time they drove into the town of Riverton, it was right on four o’clock. They stopped at the local supermarket to grab some more ice. The place was packed with people wearing Wranglers and Akubras. The town was celebrating its one-hundredth anniversary with this festival weekend and the residents were going all out to do it in style.

  Mel and Ange literally fell out of the back seat of the ute. Those two wouldn’t be getting any cowboys tonight at this rate. Stacey, on the other hand, was raring to go. She bounced out of the vehicle, reefed open an Esky, and piled in the ice they’d bought.

  ‘Right,’ said Stace, ‘let’s go find this old duck’s house and dump your sewing machine, Ashie, then we can get on with the show!’

  Seeing the campdraft and rodeo were being held at the showgrounds, which were on the outskirts of town, the woman organising the patchworking retreat had suggested that Jodie drop off her sewing machine at her house to save her from lugging it into town the next morning. She’d offered to transport it to the hall where they’d be holding the workshop, along with the spares she was providing in case someone else’s machine misbehaved or they had walk-ins. Once Stace’s ute was parked up at the camping area, it was destined to stay put. Hoochies and tarps would be strung off its bull bar as shelter for swags and the Eskys were needed 24/7. There’d be no moving that vehicle until Monday morning. With this in mind, Jodie had taken Beryl Beaton up on her offer.

  Jodie helped Stace get Mel and Ange back into the ute. They’d come out of the supermarket to find the two girls singing and dancing with the kangaroo-shaped rubbish bins, much to the hilarity of a bunch of boys in a nearby LandCruiser. ‘Tie Me Roo-t Down’ seemed to be the main – and only – chorus.

  Following the directions she’d been given, Jodie guided Stace to a house behind the main street of Riverton. They pulled up in front of a modern townhouse, beige in colour with burgundy trim. Swagged lace curtains decorated the front left-hand window while a garage with an open roller door stood pride of place on the right. A car sat half in and half out of the garage as though the owner couldn’t decide whether she wanted to stay home or not. Otherwise, the whole place was as neat as a pin. Stacey helped Jodie lug the Pfaff and Jodie’s sewing box to the front verandah. The door was open, screen door closed. They knocked on the wood surrounding the door.

  No one came.

  Stacey yelled, ‘Hellooooo!’

  Still nothing.

  Jodie tried the screen door and to her surprise it opened.

  ‘How about we just dump it and run?’ said Stacey. ‘She knows it’s coming, right?’

  Jodie thought about that for a minute, but then shook her head. ‘No, I’d prefer to meet her and tell her I’m here, if I can.’ She wouldn’t have put it past Alex to ring the woman to check she had made it. He’d been most concerned when she said mobile service was likely to be non-existent and she was catching a lift with friends. There was no way she was going to tell him which friends, so to appease him she’d left the number of the woman organising the retreat. She ran the risk of Alex finding out about the CWA connection, but it was the safest option she could think of, and it seemed to soothe his fears. She guessed it was all about her arriving safely, which was kind of him.

  In the meantime, Stacey had let herself in the front door and was casting her eye around the entrance foyer. ‘Nice place, except that thing hanging out in the corner’s a bit creepy.’

  Reluctantly Jodie joined her friend and saw Stace was referring to one of those weird ‘I’m crying in the corner’ stuffed dolls that had been all the rage a few years earlier. Oh God, no. She’d hoped this sewing group was more contemporary than that. What had she let herself in for?

  ‘This might get her,’ said Stace with a triumphant squeal. On the entrance table was a remote like a mobile doorbell. Stace pressed the button. Both girls stood and listened. Nothing was chiming, buzzing or even bonging. Stace jabbed the button once more. They listened again. Silence. Stacey jabbed the control again. And again. They could hear peals of laughter coming from the open windows of the ute outside.

  Ange yelled, ‘It’s got it!’

  ‘No, it hasn’t,’ countered Mel.

  �
��It has!’ said Ange.

  ‘No, it hasn’t,’ said Mel again.

  Jodie glanced out the doorway to see a fluffy little white Maltese Cross flying across the front lawn chasing a tabby.

  Uproarious laughter again.

  The dog and cat weren’t that funny …

  ‘Look at that door go!’ yelled Ange.

  Jodie wasted a few seconds thinking about that comment before she bolted outside. She stood looking at the garage as the roller door went up then down and then … ‘Stac-eeey!’ she yelled as she ran back inside and snatched the remote out of her friend’s hand. She spun and ran back to see the garage door kissing the bonnet of the shiny Volkswagen Passat. She was praying as she made it to the car that no damage had been done. She didn’t know what to do. If she pressed the button there was a fifty per cent chance the door would go down. Shit, shit, shit. She yelled to the two girls in the car, who were heckling her in jest.

  ‘Oh come on, Ashie. Let us see what happens next!’ said Ange.

  ‘Yeah,’ said Mel. ‘This is even better than Top Gear could do!’

  Jodie shook her head. These girls were so naughty. And drunk. And disreputable. God only knew what they would do next. But she needed to set this right before Mrs Beaton found out. ‘Which way did it go last time?’ she asked the two girls.

  ‘Up!’

  ‘Down!’

  ‘It was bloody well up, I tell you!’

  Fuck it. She’d just have to press the button. She held her breath, stuck her finger on the control – just as a woman in her mid-sixties rounded the rear side of the house. There was no way the woman could see the front of the garage but she was coming towards Jodie, a hesitant smile on her face, calling, ‘Jodie? Jodie Ashton?’

  The door jerked a bit. Jodie went to hit the button again, but the gears cranking the corrugated iron sent the door in an upwards direction. Jodie breathed a sigh of relief. The cat-calls from the car increased in intensity.

  ‘Spoilsport!’

  ‘Party-pooper!’

  Jodie hid the controller behind her back, as Beryl Beaton came abreast of her and bent to gather up her excited little mutt. Stacey appeared from nowhere, presumably having decided no one was in the house.

  ‘Jodie. How lovely to meet you.’ Beryl held out a long-fingered hand, which was adorned with diamond rings of all shapes and sizes. ‘I’ve just been out the back having a chardonnay with my neighbour, Mr Fitz.’

  The woman seemed quite flushed and there was no way Jodie was going to mention that the back of her skirt was rucked up and tucked into her underpants.

  ‘Lovely to meet you, Mrs Beaton. I’m Jodie and this is my friend, Stacey.’

  Beryl nodded towards Stacey, who was doing her best not to laugh. A man appeared from the direction Beryl had come. Jodie guessed this was Mr Fitz. He was tucking in his shirt.

  ‘You’ve come to drop off your machine?’

  ‘Yes. Thank you in advance for taking it to the hall tomorrow.’

  ‘No worries at all,’ said Beryl as Mr Fitz came up beside her and surreptitiously tried to flick her skirt to its rightful place. He failed, which sent Stacey into a coughing fit.

  ‘I’ll just go get a drink,’ gasped Stace.

  Jodie ignored her. What a day this was turning out to be. Somehow she had to get the remote back to the hall table without Beryl seeing it. She’d managed to grab a few sneaky glances at the car. There wasn’t any damage. By the grace of God, the door must have stopped just in time. Perhaps if she scrunched the remote up in her hand?

  ‘I’ll just show you where I put my Pfaff, shall I?’ said Jodie, leading the way back to the front door. She prayed Mrs Beaton would follow her. Stacey must have told the other two to shut up as mercifully they were silent. Well, except for some rough squawks of pain coming from the rear seat of the ute. She prayed they were killing each other.

  ‘I hope you don’t mind but I just placed it inside your foyer,’ said Jodie. ‘It’s such an expensive item that I didn’t want it stolen.’ She opened the wire door and let herself in. Stood with her back towards the hall table. Behind her she gently placed the remote on the table. Whew!

  ‘Of course. And Albert’s the one who’ll help me take the extra machines down to the hall tomorrow. Isn’t he a dear? We may well get more people turn up who might want to sew but didn’t have their stuff.’

  ‘Beryl runs sewing classes,’ said Mr Fitz in a proud voice. ‘Teaches young girls to stitch.’

  ‘How lovely,’ said Jodie, faintly. Beryl was full-on, just like her dog. Jodie backed her way towards escape. ‘Well, I’ll see you tomorrow morning at ten. Thanks again for carting down my stuff.’ Jodie opened the front door, waved and bolted back to the ute.

  ‘Ha!’ came a voice from the back seat. Ange probably. ‘Did ya see that roller door go? It went down on that ride like a cowgirl on heat.’

  ‘Like Beryl with old Fitzy Ritzy,’ replied Stace.

  ‘Yeww!’ yelled the girls. And they dissolved into hysterical giggles.

  Jodie shut her eyes. This was just getting better and better.

  Not.

  Chapter 15

  Getting to the showgrounds was simple. Finding an empty place to park and camp was difficult. Jodie was very glad she’d already dropped off her sewing stuff. Trucks, floats, utes and cars were parked cheek to jowl and rigs were still pouring through the gate. Why, she’d just seen a LandCruiser roll past with an old-fashioned Singer treadle sewing machine perched on the back of it. Who knew what the owner of the vehicle was going to do with that?

  ‘This’ll have to do you lot,’ said Stace as she jumped out of the ute. ‘I’ve got some drinking to be doing so I’m not driving another foot.’ She had found a space up against the outside fence. It wasn’t ideal as they got all the dust off the gravel road into the joint, but it was better than being miles away from the action. And that’s where they’d be if they wanted a camp nearer the river.

  Jodie got out and started unloading stuff from the back. Ange and Mel staggered to an upright position and promptly fell over in a tangle of limbs and gales of laughter.

  ‘Looks like the weekend started early,’ said a bloke walking past.

  Jodie cast him a glance and smiled, unaware of the effect her full-force grin had on people who’d never met her before. It caused the stockie – because that was what he was judging by his well-worn clothes and rumpled hat – to miss a beat in his stride. ‘Yes, you could say that. They’ve been drinking since we left home and that was a few hours back.’

  He stopped. ‘Where’s home?’ he asked.

  Jodie was deliberately vague. ‘Oh, back on the other side of the border. And you?’

  ‘We’re from the Northern Territory,’ said the man.

  Jodie silently clocked the ‘we’. So he had a girlfriend, she thought, and then wondered why she felt a stab of regret over that fact.

  ‘Yes, Wal and I are on our way to a job near here. Thought we’d drop in at the rodeo for the weekend.’

  Unless Wal was his girlfriend’s nickname, ‘we’ was another bloke. So he was either a Brokeback Mountain type or travelling with a friend.

  ‘You want a drink, Ash?’ This came from Stace who, sensing a likely sort, had materialised out of nowhere. ‘And what about you, mate? We’ve got beer, rum, Cruisers. What’s your poison?’

  The bloke gave her a grin and raised a six-pack of cans in his hand. ‘Already got some, but thanks all the same. I better move along and give one to Wal, though, before he thinks his throat’s cut from lack of lubrication.’

  Jodie smiled again as she noted the bloke, whom she judged to be in his mid thirties, track his eyes across her face, her body. He did it in such a way that she felt appreciated rather than violated. His eyes were a clear blue, like a brilliant summer sky. Almost the same colour as Alex’s but a shade darker, which made them more striking against his tanned skin. His hair, she thought, was brown, the little she could see of it under his hat. He had a strong square
jaw; his teeth were even and white. His gaze as he looked at her was steady and when he smiled lines of laughter made the outsides of his eyes crinkle. He was damned attractive, she’d give him that.

  ‘I’ll be seeing you a bit later on then,’ he said, casting another pointed glance at Jodie.

  Her heart skipped a beat but Jodie directed her gaze downwards. He is a cowboy, she told herself. One of those men who ride away at the slightest provocation. Plus she was already seeing someone. A man who was older, yes, but who was long-term steadiness personified. She didn’t need to encourage the likes of this bloke.

  ‘Maybe,’ she mumbled before grabbing her swag and heading towards the front of the ute.

  She could hear Stacey yelling out goodbye. Mel and Ange were whistling cat-calls, no doubt at the man’s Wrangler-clad arse. She wouldn’t have expected anything less of those two but she was shocked at herself. Her heart was still thumping out of whack. ‘You do not find him attractive … you do not find him attractive …’ she repeated under her breath. She kept her head down and concentrated on undoing the swag strap. There was no way she was going to allow her eyes to follow the man.

  ‘What the fuck?’ said Stacey, eventually coming over to Jodie, as she tied a tarp to the fence. ‘That was one lollypop on legs and you didn’t even flirt with him. He was yours, Ash, and you didn’t reel him in!’

  ‘I’m taken,’ she said.

  ‘Since when? Just cause some old bloke wants to jump your bones doesn’t mean you can’t have some fun yourself. While the tomcat’s away the mice do play and all that kinda stuff.’

  ‘Not this mouse,’ said Jodie, pulling at her truckie’s knot to ensure her tarp didn’t fly away during the night and leave her and her swag with no shelter.

  Stacey was still out to make a point. ‘You gotta loosen up a bit, Ashie. Have some fun. By all means go home and marry the old codger if that’s what you want. I mean he’s kinda attractive in an “older man” way. But here, now, let your hair down and just make sure McGregor is what you really want.’