Mountain Ash (12 page)

The man opposite her heaved a sigh. ‘Right.'

Oh God, he sounded so disappointed. His hands had loosened their hold around her waist. He was just trying to give her everything, in the only way he knew. And maybe she needed to give it a proper go, to know for sure, to give the passion a chance to grow. ‘But Alex, how about another weekend? Soon?'

His arms tightened again and he kissed her on the mouth. ‘I'll have to see when I can get away again.' Then he let her go and went to walk out the door.

She could hear Milly talking to her teddies in her room. ‘Now, you can be the mummy bear, and you can be the daddy. But you're not allowed to have a horse, cause you might ride away on it …' That's how Jodie had explained Rhys leaving. That he'd just packed up his things one day and ridden away.

‘Alex?' She grabbed his hand and pulled him back to her. ‘Thanks for Friday night. It was …' she searched for the right word ‘… delightful. Really beautiful. And I'm so sorry about the weekend. If I'd have known you were thinking …' She let the sentence hang. He could take from that what he would.

He looked appeased. ‘Never mind. You weren't to know. We'll do it again. I might have more space in my schedule shortly, so we can have more time together.' She couldn't imagine how that would ever happen, but she wasn't about to ask what he was on about. It was enough for now to know she was back on the right side of his feelings.

‘Ashie? Remind me why we're taking a sewing machine on a girls' trip?' said Stacey as she pushed and shoved the Pfaff into the back of the ute. The tray was piled high. Swags, Eskies, camp stoves, tents, duffle bags and beauty cases all jostled for space.

‘Alex thinks I'm going to the patchworking weekend.'

Stacey turned, raised her thick eyebrows, and said in an aghast voice, ‘You're not, are you?'

Jodie couldn't help but smile, which she followed up with a wince as Stacey turned back and pushed down hard on the cover of her beloved machine. The plastic groaned and scraped against the sides of the ute. One last belt to the top of the lid and Stacey had it in. It looked a tad incongruous surrounded by all the other paraphernalia, like it was ashamed to be there. Not unlike the way Jodie was feeling right now. She shouldn't be leaving Milly, and she shouldn't be leading Alex down the garden path either.

‘Well, he thinks I am,' said Jodie, ‘and I
will
go to the Saturday workshop tomorrow. It was just amazing your campdraft and rodeo are part of the same festival.'

‘Mate, after tonight, you're not going to be in any fit state to walk a straight line let alone sew one,' said Stacey. ‘Now get your arse in that ute and let's get crackin'. We've got some tar to put behind us before teatime. The others are meeting us at Riverton.'

Jodie looked around in surprise. Stacey drove a Holden Crewman. She already had two girls in the back. ‘How many of us are going?'

‘Six, maybe eight, possibly ten. Who the bloody hell knows?' said Stacey, bouncing around to the driver's side and opening her door. ‘I've got enough T-shirts for ten. Here's yours.' She threw Jodie a scrap of material across the roof between them. Jodie caught it just as Milly attached herself to her mother's legs. ‘I'm going to miss you, Mum.'

The primary school, in its wisdom, had decided today and Monday were ‘pupil-free days'. Just what Jodie needed to ramp up the guilt of going away.

Over her daughter's head, Jodie could see Mue waiting with her dog under one arm, her other hand held out for Milly. ‘C'mon, munchkin, give Mummy a kiss and then we'll be off.' The older woman glanced at Jodie and gave a slight wink. ‘We've got to get some groceries from the supermarket this morning so we can do a cook up. Milly's going to help me. She's becoming quite the expert at decorating with hundreds and thousands.'

Jodie smiled. Thank God for Muey. She didn't know what she'd do without the woman. She bent down to enclose her little girl in her arms and whispered into her hair, ‘I'll miss you
too, sweetheart. Be good for Muey and Mum'll be home on Monday before you know it. It's only three days.'

‘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.