Ringer (3 page)

Chapter Five

Ringer

“You’re more
than welcome to stay in the house.”

Steve Henry walked in front of me down the
long hallway that led into a pristine, cream-coloured kitchen with stainless
steel modern appliances. He was tall and wiry like Max, except for one obvious
difference: Max didn’t have a beer gut … yet. Steve’s sandy-blond hair and
weathered face from working outdoors no doubt made him look older than he
actually was. Still, he had a firm handshake which immediately put him in good
stead—it’s all any bloke could ask for in order to make a good impression;
well, that and an offer of a cold beer that I gladly welcomed. After the long
drive and near-death experience, I must have looked a sight. I arrived at Moira
station covered in dust, my jeans torn on the side and a skinned elbow. Max’s
dad, Steve, had looked me over with guarded humour.

“Rough trip?” he asked.

Nothing like a bit of smart-arse humour to
lighten the mood. I think I would like Steve Henry just fine.

“Like I said, there’s plenty of spare rooms
in the house if you want to claim one for yourself.”

“Thanks, Mr Henry, but I’ve stayed in
shearers’ huts before, I’m happy to crash there.”

“Ha. Maybe you better inspect them before
committing, and if you call me Mr Henry one more time I’ll force you to sleep
in the shearing shed with the sheep.”

I smirked, picking at the VB label of my
stubby. “You’re a subtle man, Steve.”

“Ha. Just ask my wife: subtle as a
sledgehammer, she says.” He finished the last of his stubby before slamming it
onto the kitchen sink, smacking his lips together as if he had satisfied an
insatiable thirst, before belching like a champion. “Come on,” Steve tilted his
head towards the screen door that led out to the verandah, “you can check out
the shearing huts, see what you think.”

I followed his long strides out of the
kitchen. The cream-coloured dial telephone mounted on the kitchen wall by the
door sounded, causing us both to jump with the unexpectedness of it.

Steve paused in the open door frame,
briefly closing his eyes and groaning as he looked up to the sky as if silently
asking God to give him strength.

“Speak of the devil,” he said before
turning to me. “The Mrs.”

I nodded my head with silent understanding
as he let the wire screen door slam shut and reached for the phone.

“Hello … oh, hello, luv,” he said
cheerfully before giving me a smug wink. “Yeah, no I was just giving Max’s
young mate a tour of the place … yep, no seems like a good bloke … ah-ha,
ah-ha, ah-ha …” Steve rolled his eyes at me, as he barely got a word in on the
one-sided conversation. He placed his hand over the receiver.

“Ah, this might take a while, why don’t you
grab another beer and go relax in the lounge room, it’s pretty cool in there,”
he whispered, before returning to his conversation. “Yeah, I am listening,” he
snapped.

I backed away from the display of wedded
bliss, cringing at the thought of having to answer to anyone like that; to be
accountable to anyone other than myself seemed …
exhausting.
I placed my
empty stubby on the sink next to Steve’s, going against the idea of grabbing
another until he did. Instead, I made my way to the lounge room, delving my
hands deep into my pockets as I casually took in the tidy room. The plush
carpet had me wishing I had wiped my feet a little more vigorously before
entering the home. I had wiped them pretty hard anyway, having seen the
impressive, mansion-like homestead—the large, pristine weatherboard home with
its sweeping verandahs that surrounded the whole building, acting as a shelter
over the freshly oiled merbau decking. French doors led out onto the deck, no
doubt designed to allow access to what cool airflow there was when the sun went
down. The main entrance was grand with its ornate leadlight windows surrounding
a heavy front door, detailed with Victorian scroll moulding. It screamed
decadence. It opened into a long hallway; the gloss of the Murray pine
floorboards shone as light filtered through the open door. My eyes had then
been drawn forward to admire the decoratively corniced arch that divided the
hall. A chandelier held grandly from the fifteen-foot pressed metal ceilings.
It was the second thing that really struck me about the place: that and
everything was cream. Cream curtains, cream couches, cream carpet. And if it
wasn’t cream it was white: white architraves, white mantel, white doilies
lining the side tables with photo frames. It would have been a farmer’s worst
nightmare knocking off for the day and having to tentatively creep through the
house, not daring to touch anything for fear of smudging an immaculately kept
surface.

Cream was bullshit, and with that in mind,
I chose to stand.

The white mantel was aligned with matching
silver frames of alternative patterns and sizes; I lazily cast my eyes over
them, staring from the left and walking to the other end, slowly taking in the
mostly unknown faces.

I spotted a pimply-faced Max first, looking
miserable and pubescent in his grammar school burgundy jacket and tie. I
smirked to myself; of course they would have been privately educated. Next to
Max’s frame was that of a beaming girl with black hair and a smile full of
metal; she looked about thirteen. She also wore some kind of hideous uniform. I
shook my head.

Poor kids.

I glanced towards the kitchen where a weary-looking
Steve was rubbing his eyes and nodding on the phone. For me, right then, he was
the classic poster child for all the reasons why you would never dedicate
yourself to one person. Get hitched, pump out a couple of kids and live
mundanely ever after.

No thanks.

I sighed, thinking I would make my own way
to the out buildings, check out the shearers’ huts for myself. God only knew
how long Steve’s ear was going to be chewed off by his Mrs. Speaking of.

Hello.

My eyes rested on a wedding picture of a
much-younger-looking Steve Henry. Decked out in a hideous-looking 70s-style
suit, with criminally large lapels and flares that looked like he might have
been whisked away like an unattached jumping castle should a gust of wind catch
them. I grimaced.

The young Steve had his blond curls
plastered down in a ridiculous side parting as he adoringly looked down at his
not-too-ridiculous-looking wife. Sure, she looked like a giant meringue in that
dress, but there was no denying it. Mrs Henry was a bit of a fox. Jet-black
hair cut into a bob, she too looked adoringly up at her husband. I almost
allowed myself to be lost in a romantic sense of nostalgia. Almost.

I shook my head, tearing my eyes away to
move on to the next frame and paused.

This time is wasn’t a picture of some
miserable-looking private school kid, or some dated olden-day photo with
questionable fashion. Instead it was a picture of a girl. It was different from
the others; her smile was bright and authentic, her blonde hair captured in the
moment as if blowing in a breeze. She looked carefree, happy, exotic. And it
wasn’t just the fact she was taking some kind of awkwardly angled selfie next
to the unmistakable Eiffel tower, she was exotic in another way I couldn’t
wholly describe. Her eyes were shielded by sunglasses, and annoyance flashed in
my mind of how it spoilt the image of the girl. I very much wanted to see what
those eyes looked like; my eyes darted along the mantel, searching amongst the
frames. Searching for a pair of eyes. And then I found them. But they weren’t
the light, smiling eyes I had expected; instead, they were sad, and humourless.
A girl once again sitting in a stiff school uniform, her blue-green eyes
haunted by something. I looked once more amongst the frames, but aside from the
odd child or baby photo I couldn’t see any other image with those eyes: eyes I
had wanted to see in any other way but sad. They were far too pretty for that.
Against my own understanding, I picked up the Paris frame and looked at it more
closely; her smile was framed by brilliant white, perfect teeth, her cheeks
flushed from excitement.

The corner of my mouth creased; well, well,
well … who knew Max Henry had a hot sister. I shook my head, thinking to
quickly place the frame back on the mantel before Steve Henry caught me perving
on his daughter. Just in the nick of time I heard the phone slam down, followed
by a deep sigh, before Steve appeared in the large arch between the kitchen and
the lounge.

He shook his head. “Women.”

I smiled with good humour.

My thoughts exactly.

“Everything all right?” I asked.

Steve crossed his arms and leant against
the arch.

“Penny is in town with our youngest, Moira;
some formal dress they’re on the hunt for, for some ridiculous town hall disco.
They actually asked me if they should go with silk or satin?” He laughed
incredulously. “How the bloody hell should I know between silk or bloody satin?
All I know is wool, and when I suggested how about Nana Henry knit Moira a
formal dress, well, that went down like a bloody lead balloon, as you could
imagine.”

I couldn’t help but laugh. “Shame, nothing
says disco like a knitted evening gown.”

“Yeah, well, my next line of thought was
for her to accessorise it with a bloody chastity belt, but thought against getting
myself into more trouble than a rat with a gold tooth.”

Our laughter echoed through the room in our
bonded moment of man talk. Steve caught his breath from laughing at his own
joke; he cocked his head as if listening to something in the distance. My own
laughs died and I fell silent. My humour faded; instead, I watched Steve
intently for a long moment. It was like he was frozen in time. I was about to
voice my concern when his serious face slowly broke into a brilliant smile.

“Here she is.” He smiled.

My brows lowered, thinking that he had
maybe completely lost the plot; I went to ask what he was talking about before
pausing. That’s when I heard it: the distant, yet familiar hums of a struggling
motor, a sound that caused the hairs on the back of my neck to stand on end,
and my pulse to quicken as a familiar rage bubbled in me.

No. Fucking. Way.

He gave a wide grin. “My little girl’s
home.” He quickly stepped towards the wire door, before turning to me. “Come
on, come meet my daughter, Miranda.” He beamed.

A sense of dread filled me as I cast a
fleeting glance back to the mantle and then moved to follow Steve. My
expression grave as I neared the kitchen door, the unmistakable, and all too
recognisable sound became louder. It was the equivalent of running your nails
down a chalkboard. And sure enough, I had lost all interest in Steve’s cheery
demeanour as I stood next to him on the verandah. Instead, I stood in stark
contrast to his animated waves and smiles as the daughter of the devil made a
wide, semicircular sweep in the drive, in none other than a white hatchback
Mazda.

Well … this is fucked.

I glared down from the verandah,
maintaining my stoic stance as Steve descended the steps two at a time, eager
to greet his charming little cherub. There was little doubt in my mind what the
hell child from behind the wheel would look like, and sure enough, as the door
swung open in a pained screech, a blonde head poked out and the Parisian
goddess on the mantel slid out from her car.

Oh for fuck’s sake.

Tall, slender, and dressed in a way that
definitely screamed European, her black ankle boots and black skin-tight jeans
accentuated the length of her long legs and the perfect curve of her slender,
womanly figure. All would be distracting, but none more so than the sunglasses
that framed her face, shielding those mysterious eyes like they did in that
photo. I then reminded myself that I really couldn’t give a shit what her eyes
looked like. The black widow herself had almost killed me merely an hour
before. The fact she was wearing a light gloss on her bow-shaped lips, or the
shine of her hair as the sun hit it at the right angle, or the way she moved to
open the back passenger door with grace in such a short distance … no, I
wouldn’t let any of that distract me, not for a second.

If she had seen me standing on the verandah
she paid me no notice as she reached into the back seat and retrieved a bag.

“Hello, luv.” Steve was by her side, all
smiles and open arms; the father-and-daughter reunion was destined to be a real
tear jerker until Daddy’s little girl thrust her bag into Steve’s chest with an
oomph.

His brows rose. “Rough trip?” he asked,
repeating the exact same words he had said to me; this time, he clamped down
his humour as if not wanting to poke the bear. And he was right, because even
with sunglasses on, no one would have to guess too hard that there was a
glacial stare behind the dark shades.

Without a word she shouldered her other bag
and slammed the door.

Yep! A real piece of work.

Cyclone Miranda was now headed in my
direction; now, more than ever, I wanted her glasses to be gone so I could see
the look in her eyes. I backed my way towards the screen door and waited. Her
expensive European heels clicked up the steps, her blonde hair partially framed
her face. She looked exhausted, as if she was carrying the weight of the world
on her shoulders. Poor little rich girl had no porter to carry her designer
bags for her. I smiled against my better judgement and, instead, had great
pleasure in reaching and opening the door for her.