The House On Burra Burra Lane (7 page)

‘A guy my mother approved of.’

‘Someone you liked?’

‘Not as much as my mother, so it got a little ugly. A clash of wills and apparently I was the one not in touch with reality, so I got labelled complicated and annoying by both of them.’

She was too bright and happy to have been affected by other people’s wishes, although it appeared she’d had some trouble. ‘Sounds like manipulation,’ he suggested.

‘I dangled on a few strings for a while, but like I say, it’s old nonsense now.’ She put the brush down. ‘Why don’t we go get that beer?’ Her voice rose brightly as she stepped forwards. ‘Before you go.’

He blocked her way. ‘Why don’t you tell me about this guy and what he did to you?’

She ran her tongue along her bottom lip. ‘This is a little more personal than I’d like just now. It’s not the sort of thing you discuss with a neighbour.’

‘I thought I was your friend.’

‘I don’t feel comfortable talking like this. I’m sorry.’

He wasn’t in any position to sort her troubles out for her anyway. He was supposed to have made up his mind on that. ‘You don’t apologise to a friend, Sammy.’ He took hold of her hand. ‘Let’s get that beer and discuss the fence.’

He curled his fingers around hers. Sammy—she’d always be Sammy to him now. Her mother and that guy probably called her Samantha.

‘And that’s my take on it, Ethan. Our kids need something to keep ’em occupied. How are we gonna keep ’em here without a trade? There aren’t any jobs around that don’t require them to travel a hundred kilometres to and from town.’

‘It’s tough for those who stay, Mr Morelly.’ Ethan settled his weight on his hip. He had fifteen posts for Sammy’s fence stacked on the ute and was eager to be gone, but young Mr Morelly had an old bee in his bonnet. At least the conversation was familiar, because he couldn’t keep his thoughts off Sammy and the damned fence.

The ping of the hardware store’s old silver doorbell gave him his break. Young Josh Rutherford walked in, followed by an older resident, shopping bag in hand. Mr Morelly sprang to assist.

Ethan gathered his other purchases from the wooden counter. The whole fence should be torn down and replaced but she couldn’t afford it. So she’d compromised over a beer. She’d promised to let him fix it so it didn’t lean and he’d said he’d help her paint it again. She’d given in to him because she felt it was what he wanted. He’d coerced her—hadn’t compromised on anything, he’d got what he wanted.

Rational thought was hard, even though he’d put so much effort into it earlier in the week. He’d pushed her into accepting his terms, and couldn’t steer himself from the fact he was glad he’d done so. He’d do the same again if he had to, and given her stubborn attitude, he’d have to. Problem was, it was for all for his benefit. He didn’t want her hands to get hurt.

‘Ethan.’

Ethan turned. ‘Hi, Josh. Got your motorcycle yet?’

Josh shrugged. ‘Mum said I have to pay for it myself so I got a job at Cuddly Bear Toy Shop.’

Ethan attempted to keep his surprise, and more importantly, his amusement, hidden.

‘She doesn’t want me to have a bike in case I leave town,’ Josh continued. ‘So I’m stuck working in a toy shop. She doesn’t want me to have anything.’ He’d rolled the sleeves of his T-shirt up, showing off the brawn of his biceps like young hellraisers did in the movies. He’d even stuck pack of chewing gum in the cuff.

Ethan let his smile grow. ‘She’s got your best interests at heart.’

‘Yeah, like I don’t know that.’

It sounded familiar.

Josh sauntered closer, his sneakers bigger than his feet, his jeans shimmying down his hips. He was a perfect male triangle, broad on top, lean beneath. Except he hadn’t grown into full manhood yet.

‘Have you thought it over?’ Josh asked.

‘I have, I told you I would.’

Josh pulled the pack of chewing gum from his sleeve and slipped a piece out. He offered one to Ethan.

Ethan shook his head. ‘No thanks.’ He took a breath, moistened his mouth, giving himself time. ‘I can’t take you on, Josh. I haven’t got the resources a builder has. I don’t even have a receptionist for the practice, it’s just me, and at present I don’t have an assistant vet either.’

Josh stopped chewing, rolled his shoulder and looked out of the plate glass window with its large curly-scripted sign,
Morelly’s
. ‘Okay, thanks anyway, Ethan.’

Ethan didn’t know what stung more; having to refuse the kid a job, or hearing Josh take it so casually. ‘I’ll see if there’s anyone taking on apprentices, but you’d have to travel.’

Josh looked back at Ethan, and chewed his gum. ‘Don’t want anything stupid, like digging holes, I want to work with wood.’

‘Carpentry isn’t my main business. I have to look after the practice first, my other work is … ’
A skill
. A craft Josh had the ability for. The kid had the strength in his shoulders and the nimbleness in his hands. He should be apprenticed to a carpenter, or a builder, but his mother, Patricia Rutherford, wasn’t in the best of health for him to be gone from home right now.

That sounded too damned familiar too. Patricia had brought Josh up alone and done a fine job. She was the same age as Ethan, they’d even gone out a few times all those years ago before he’d made his way to the city, forgetting his would-be girlfriend in his rush to fix others’ lives. He silently commended Patricia for the way she’d brought Josh up. He wouldn’t have had the ability anywhere near as well at such a young age.

He nodded his goodbye and left Josh with his troubles.

He breathed the late afternoon air, glad to have got the deed done and sorry he hadn’t taken the time to visit Josh and his mother, given the kid bad news sooner. He’d let them down by not doing so.

‘Those posts for young Walker’s place?’

Ethan paused, then walked towards Grandy’s bench. ‘Yes.’ The bench was under the sign. Grandy sat there most days, watching the town.

‘How’s she doing?’

Ethan sat, needing to balance his mind a moment. ‘She’s doing well. Your bet’s in danger.’

‘I’m hoping she’ll stay,’ Grandy said. ‘How’s the house?’

Ethan rested the packages on his thigh. ‘Worse than I remembered. Better now she’s in it.’

‘Giving you the heebie-jeebies, is she?’

Ethan smiled, used to Grandy’s old-fashioned terminology and unsure whether to take the bait offered. It would be polite and respectful to let the old man talk about Miss Walker and Burra Burra Lane, but in his heart, he wanted to speak of Sammy too. He braced, even as he thought it.

‘How long are you going to hang around, wasting time, getting older? She’s there for the taking, boy, and don’t tell me you haven’t thought about it.’

‘I’m just helping her out.’

Grandy humphed a throaty laugh. ‘Feel strange, does it?’

Ethan nodded, torn between a need to speak and a wish to stay silent. It did feel weird, every time he went to Sammy’s place, like some loop from the past going round and round, playing the same scene over and over.

‘You’ll get used to it, Ethan. Times change, you know that yourself.’

‘I didn’t expect the house to be the same.’

‘It wasn’t. Not for years. Does she like you?’

‘We get on fine.’

‘Your mother would have liked her.’

Ethan’s stomach churned. ‘I imagine she would have.’

‘She’s a fine young woman. You’d suit each other.’

Ethan gripped his parcels.

‘You didn’t do anything wrong, son. You can’t live people’s lives for them. Time to get over it.’

Way too close for comfort. These things hadn’t been articulated for years. Even more frightening than the sick feeling was the need to sit here and talk about the past. Everything he’d blocked with concrete resolve—suddenly a pneumatic drill thumped, trying to bore a place to sit.

‘Young Walker’s brought it back to life,’ Grandy said.

Did he mean the house? Or the past? An immediate anger burned in Ethan’s chest. If he wasn’t careful, the whole damned town would be chinwagging with heavier stuff than the constant complaints about the kids who left. ‘What’s the talk?’ he asked.

‘What you’d expect. They haven’t remembered too far back yet.’

‘I’m getting too close,’ he said quietly. ‘I’m doing too much for her.’

‘She’ll let you know if she thinks so.’

‘She doesn’t know anything.’

‘Best you tell her then.’

Ethan stood. ‘There’ll be no need.’ He caught Grandy’s stare: a bullet between the eyes. He swallowed, nodded a goodbye, and turned. He took the steps from the wooden pedestrian walkway down to the road. The talk would be smoke without fire these days. Although a person could choke on the inhalations.

He swung into the cab and fired the engine, his heartbeat ripping at his chest.
Anger
. He closed his eyes, fought the swell of turbulence in his mind. It wasn’t Sammy’s fault, flying into his surgery, his world. Shattering his peace. But the reason for his anger was burning a hole in his gut.

E
than didn’t have to pass Sammy’s place to get to the Smyth farm but he’d driven from his surgery, pulled up at the fork on All Seasons Road and taken a right into Burra Burra Lane instead of the more direct route straight ahead. He had no intention of stopping off, but the ute had a mind of its own.

He sighed. Settled the frustration.

His emotions should be well below the surface, tidily controlled, only waiting to take a hold of him if he let them. He hadn’t imagined a time when he would allow them to break out, but his worries had surfaced yesterday, talking with Grandy. The old man knew everything. He’d been the one to kick Ethan out of town, for God’s sake.

There’d been one hell of a blue. A fight the townspeople had still remarked on when he returned to Swallow’s Fall six years ago and opened the practice. Not that he could blame them.

He still felt his hands on that idiot Wesley Hawkins, who’d been asking for it all year anyway. Whining and whinging to the school teacher about how Ethan had made him late three times in a row by hiding his bicycle. It hadn’t been Ethan, it had been some other loser, but Ethan had been happy to take the flak because he enjoyed the rumble that came with it.

He winced at the memory. He’d not been shy of a fight but he’d been sixteen, Wes only fourteen. Ethan had grown into his muscles in his early teens, and Wes was probably still some wet twig of a man, wherever he lived now. But still …

It had been Wes who had warned Grandy because Ethan had stupidly bragged about what he was going to do and then promptly stole Wes’s bike from his hands. First time he’d done it, although he’d boasted about doing it often enough … and he’d got caught.

Grandy had walked into a much younger Mrs J’s house as though he were striding into a bullpen ready to saddle one up and ride bronco. He hauled Ethan out of the hall cupboard so hard Ethan thought his collarbone had popped.

Grandy marched him into the dining room, pointed at the jumble of chintzy cushions, broken crockery and scattered knickknacks—it hadn’t been easy getting twenty two chickens into the house quietly—and demanded an explanation for the mess and why there was so much scratching and clucking coming from Mrs Johnson’s bathroom.

Joke, Ethan had said.

Oh, man
. Had he copped it.

It wasn’t as if he’d hurt the animals, they were happy enough to peck on the grain he’d thrown onto the pink mats in Mrs J’s cavernous bathroom, and it wasn’t because he’d missed school again, or pinched the bike, or even because he’d hidden in the cupboard waiting for the screaming and flapping when Mrs J went to spend a penny. Grandy had been furious because Ethan had broken into Mrs J’s house like a thief.
An idiot.

Would have been mildly amusing if things hadn’t ended so badly. Two fights in town later, with grown men who had come in for a beer, not expecting to lose their wallets to a kid—and Grandy had given Ethan money for the bus fare. Told him to hightail it and not come back to Swallow’s Fall until he’d found his way the hard way, grown some sense and turned himself into the decent man he was capable of becoming.

If anyone retold these stories in front of Sammy, he’d have a lot of explaining to do. And he didn’t want to think about how he’d left his mother alone. If they brought that up, it would all come out.
Did Sammy even know yet that this was his town? His house?

He should leave her be for a while, take a step back before all this got out of hand.
It was her house now. Nothing to do with him. No need for her to know about his past.

She was an uncomplicated person, no matter what others had told her. Grace, humour and a willing optimism were ingrained in her.
So different to himself
. It would take a great deal to dampen her spirit. Maybe that’s why she’d come here, bought the old property. She could be using the adventure to get over that guy and whatever he and her mother had done. It must have been something hard though, to make a happy girl run. And what would she do when she was sick of the country? Run again?

He stirred himself from that reflection. He had no intention of swaying her decision.

Then he saw her, sitting on her gate at the end of her driveway, eating an apple and swinging her legs, and he knew he was right about her; she was happiness itself. Why would anyone want to hurt her?

He swung the ute to the verge and wound his window down.

‘Hello,’ she called. ‘Where are you off to?’

The daylight shimmered over her. Her long russet hair, tied in a ponytail, caught the breeze. She smiled at him and in the space between moments, his edginess flew on the wind.

He smiled back. ‘The Smyth farm. Want to come?’

‘Anything interesting to look at?’

‘A new foal.’

She jumped off the gate, threw the apple core into the ditch and headed for his ute, wiping her hands on her track pants.

‘Baby animals. Why didn’t you say sooner?’ She grinned, her lips still wet from the apple. She hooked her hip onto the passenger seat and arranged herself, slamming the door and grabbing the seatbelt.

‘Go forth.’ She swung her arm up, pointing her finger. ‘It’s getting older as we sit here.’