White Horses, page 35
Emerging from the bathroom, excitement wafting with the dispersing steam, Drift told herself to get a grip. Still she felt the flush of longing, making her heart beat faster. It wasn’t that she needed a man. It was more that she wanted to rediscover that feeling she’d had when she was with Eli. That raw physical desire she’d felt when lying with him. Could that same feeling be found with another man?
Instead of heading back out to the work truck, she followed strange noises along the hallway. It sounded as if someone was being throttled. In the kitchen Jack stood at the chipped laminate bench beside a grease-splattered old stove in his work jeans and a plaid shirt, collar up. The lemon and orange paint on the cupboards was grimed with years of workers’ comings and goings, their finger marks on the edges, handles missing and replaced by loops of bale twine. The one stand-out thing, apart from tall Jack, was the big shiny red coffee machine that sat on the bench making the noise Drift had heard.
He turned to her briefly. ‘This is Carlos,’ he said, waving his hand at the machine. ‘I’m making myself a skinny latte. Want one?’
Drift looked momentarily puzzled at the strapping young man and the coffee machine.
‘A what?’
‘A latte,’ he said as he busied himself with frothing and heating the milk. ‘I’ve got almond milk, soy or skinny.’
‘Are you serious?’
‘Very,’ he said with a grin.
‘You have a coffee machine called Carlos? With an assortment of milk choices? Out here?’
‘Well I wasn’t going to call him Jim or Barry, was I? Too ordinary a name for something as magnificent as this. Coffee?’ he asked again.
‘No thanks,’ she said.
He spun about to face her, and that blue-eyed gaze hit her, making her heart flutter instantly.
‘You sure? Carlos and I make a wicked cappuccino,’ he tempted.
‘I don’t drink coffee.’
‘You don’t? Well that’s weird.’
He smiled charmingly at her with his model-boy looks as he swirled the warmed milk in a silver jug before pouring it into a coffee glass. Then he set about wiping the machine lovingly, as if it were a child with a dirty face.
‘Brought it all the way from Sydney,’ he said. ‘My swag and my coffee machine. That might make me a bit of a wanker!’ Then he laughed and Drift saw how even his teeth were, like a movie star’s.
‘You said it,’ she countered. He paused, taking her in, post shower and clothed.
‘And who is this tetchy yet beautiful young woman invading my shower and now my pop-up coffee palace this morning?’
Jack lifted his latte to his mouth and sipped, waiting for her answer. Drift saw the flirtatious way he narrowed his eyes at her. Her own eyes seemed to have taken on a life of their own, looking over his gym-sculpted arms again. As they did, her heart lurched instantly back to Eli.
She told herself to let go. This man had an edge to his energy that seemed to fill the entire room with a buzz. She was drawn to it, but she felt like a horse bent to his will. With Eli, she had been drawn towards him with trust like Minty had. With Eli she had still felt safe, despite his mystery and secrets, and his past. This man made her feel like she could be his prey. But while she felt threatened, she also felt a thrill.
‘I’m Drift,’ she said, trying to sound nonchalant. Jack simply smiled and nodded, like he was satisfied with something. He continued looking at her as he sipped at his coffee.
‘Well,’ Drift said, to fill what felt like an awkward silence, ‘I’d better get going. Get to work.’
‘Me too,’ Jack said, sipping his coffee as if he was in no hurry at all. ‘See you round, Drift, darling. Happy stitching.’
She frowned at him. ‘Yep. See you round, Jackaroo Jackass. Happy . . . whatever you do,’ she said trying to sound cool and failing.
When she stepped out of the back door to find Dunno and Gearbox waiting for her, she heard Jack call out to her, his voice following her down the hall. ‘We’re headed to the pub tonight. You’re welcome to tag along.’
A faint smile arrived on Drift’s face as she let the door swing shut behind her without giving him an answer.
*
As Drift sat sewing in the back of the truck beside the shady corro stables, she cursed how her head wrestled with the same question over and over. Should I go to the pub? The repetitive loop in her brain made her irritable, and the thought of Jack and his rich-boy Sydney arrogance made her cross but excited at the same time. She felt like a snorty horse, whose curiosity was winning the battle to approach the thing it feared.
Drift was so used to just keeping to herself and focusing on her work that she was annoyed a bloke had got to her. God knows, in her travels there’d been so many who’d tried. Why this one? She stood, arched her back, stretching her neck, interlacing her fingers and flexing her hands. She grabbed the rug she was working on and checked it was all fixed and functioning, then clipped the leg straps and folded it neatly, stepping down from the truck and carrying it into the airy stables. She set it on the growing pile of mended items.
A handsome quarter horse with a chestnut coat and wide paintbrush stripe down his nose looked out from the stall, ears cast forwards, chewing on hay that hung from his muzzle. The horse reminded her of Sophia’s stallion Alphie. More irritation rose in her.
‘What are you looking at?’ she said to him. She reached out to pat him, taking in his steady energy for a moment, worshipping him for his purity, and grateful just to be back in the presence of a horse. Humans are so complex compared to horses, she thought. Horses were clear. Humans masked things, they contained secrets. She leaned against the timber wall beside the beautiful animal, picking at the hard calluses that had formed on her hands from the tough machining needed to work the thick material of horse blankets. The question came again. Should I go to the pub?
If she went, she would be tired for the drive tomorrow. She’d planned to be in the next town for their country show over the long weekend. She had to be in the gates and set up by eight am, so a late night would make it all so much harder. She ran the movie in her head of her evening here on Dixon, if there was no Jack. She would take a luxury second shower for the day, falling into bed early after a slap-up meal of pasta. The silent time spent with just the hiss of the small gas stove in the tiny kitchen section of the truck, and the peaceful company of the dogs. Books to read on the bed before she fell asleep not long after sundown.
‘That’s it,’ she said to the chestnut horse, ‘I’m not going.’ Satisfied, she went back to the truck and recorded the most recent rug repair on to the invoice for Owen. Picking up the next rug, she settled herself down at the machine. The belly strap had come away and the fabric was perishing in a right-angle tear. She was just about to cut a patch when her phone buzzed with a text message. She picked it up and frowned. The message simply read, Well? You coming?
She looked about the work yard. There was no sign of anyone. She smiled, knowing it was Jack.
She texted back, How’d you know my number? Then she threw the phone down as if it were hot in her hands, and set to work again, but instantly a reply came.
Take a look at your truck door Blondie.
Drift rolled her eyes. Of course! Her mobile number was painted there in large font. She felt her face flush red and her body prickle at both her stupidity and Jack’s implication that she was a dumb blonde. She looked at his message again and conceded it had been pretty dumb of her, but why would he even think to have got her number from the truck door?
Don’t you have work to do? she texted back, wishing he would just go away and leave her alone.
Well? You coming? his text came again. She threw the phone down and let out a sigh. About ten minutes passed. Then another text arrived from him: Pick you up at seven.
Chapter 44
Jack Hawkins swung the Landcruiser wagon into line with the other vehicles along the main street of Gunnington. During the hour-long trip to the single hotel town, sitting up front next to Jack, Drift tried to tell herself it was a good decision to come out for the night, but her stomach still twisted with nerves. She wasn’t used to hanging with a gang of young people, and yet there she was with a crew of brand-new ‘friends’ in the form of other ringers they’d collected from the big station of Cobworth along the way. An hour earlier she’d swivelled in the front seat to meet the young workers, all scrubbed clean and ready for a big night as they clambered into the Cruiser with their six-pack of roadies already half drunk. Jack introduced Connor, Adele and Wal, and the fun and bulldust had begun.
At Gunnington, they now spilled out of the vehicle, stretching and tugging down their clothing, ready to roll. Drift noticed Adele was wearing a little black dress teamed with Durango boots and her blonde hair was hitched high in a classic ponytail. Only her square strong hands and grimed fingers gave away she wasn’t all glamour girl. Drift was relieved she wasn’t the only girl with rough hands not in jeans.
Back in the truck, she’d agonised over her outfit, at one stage wishing she could wear a bloody horse rug. She only had one pair of ‘good’ jeans, and they were stained on the thigh where she’d dropped a greasy piece of chicken on the road to Dixon Station from the last roadhouse. She only had cheap T-shirts, and her best collared shirts were the logo ones Wilma’d given her for the saddlery work. She didn’t want to bother talking about her business tonight so they wouldn’t do. The library dresses just didn’t seem right, so she’d taken out the light cotton cowgirl-style dress that Wilma had sent her as another birthday gift. Why not give herself a belated twenty-third tonight?
As she slipped it from the hanger, she slid the material, printed with pretty little green-stemmed cherries on white, through her fingers. The dress was a bit short in Drift’s book, not good for climbing through fences, but she liked the look of it when she put it on.
‘Wilma the Wondrous,’ she said as she ran her hands over the perfectly fitting dress. She had no choice but to drag on her best workboots, as the sandals Wilma had bought her had long given up the ghost and the only other footwear she had was thongs. The cuban heels and fancy stitching of her boots gave the pretty little dress some extra grunt. Satisfied, Drift turned and walked away from the mirror.
Now outside the Gunnington Hotel she felt nothing but vulnerable in the dress, as the rabble sounds of a raucous country crowd overflowed from the open windows. The single-storey pub had a slumpy sideways lean to it, but coloured footy flags hanging from the verandah gave it some cheer. She looked up and down the main street noting it was the only street in Gunnington. Dwarfed beneath the evening blush of a vast sky, Drift concluded Gunnington was less than a two-horse town. Less than a blink. Smaller even than a pin dot on a map. All the place had to keep its faint heart beating, as far as Drift could tell, was the pub. Across the street a defunct church was falling down. A community hall barely managed to echo its lost dance-hall days. The people who had built the once pretty hall would be rolling in their graves to see the broken windows, the rotting bare boards, and unreadable sign that was threatening to fall over altogether at the slumping fence. Any other houses in the place had long since crumbled to ruins. Drift looked at the square fenced block they’d parked near, chewed short by a pair of dull-eyed bay horses so the soil revealed the cornerstone foundations of old buildings long since forgotten.
Despite that, about fifty utes and farm vehicles surrounded the pub. Some had the footy-team streamers of blue and white draped from aerials.
‘This place is the hub,’ Jack said, as he saw Drift looking about. ‘Friday-night raffles, SES meetings, farmer group get-togethers, but there’s no night bigger than a footy fundraising night. C’mon,’ he said. They followed the three other ringers and walked up the shallow steps onto the wonky verandah.
Inside, ceiling fans turned fast overhead in a futile attempt to blast some cool into the crowded bar and a cheer went up from around the pool table when Jack and his friends arrived. The other ringers were enveloped into the fold, but Jack hung back with Drift. She was partly grateful but also unsettled to find Jack hovering near as if they were on some kind of date.
‘You like?’ he asked, stooping down to her and having to shout over the top of the pub noise. Drift nodded, but this kind of environment was not one she’d ever really liked. Nor willingly experienced. When she was underage, her dad had most times left her locked in the caravan on his bender nights, though he’d never left her alone for long, even if he was rolling drunk when he came back. Even when she turned eighteen, she never went, preferring to comfort herself with a book. She associated pubs like this with losing her dad to booze.
A rush of movement caught her eye and suddenly a boy was up on the bar. He was a bulky dark-haired footy player, sculling beer from a trophy while everyone about him cheered and people shoved notes down his daks. Money for the club if he drank the lot. Then as the roo-cha-cha footy songs started, Drift’s eyes travelled beyond the gulping boy to the collection of hundreds of stubby holders nailed to the walls and stuffed crocodile above the bar, holding a beer and grinning down at the drinkers. Drift knew they were miles from croc country, so she wondered what its story was.
Jack saw where she was looking and smiled at her. ‘Like the decor?’ he shouted to her over the din.
‘What’s with that?’ Drift asked, pointing to the crocodile.
Jack just shrugged, smiled and made the motion with his hand as if having a drink.
Drift shook her head. ‘Just a water, thanks.’
‘A what?’ he shouted.
‘Water.’
Jack pulled a ‘you’re kidding’ face at her, and held out the palms of his hands, as if pleading with her.
‘C’mon. No coffee? No grog? Jeez, live a little, woman!’
He shouldered his way to the bar, Drift taking in how the neat cornflower-blue shirt hugged his broad shoulders. As she waited for him to return, Drift felt a shimmer of regret. She shouldn’t have come. She remembered the last drinking bender she’d had with her dad at the abattoir. She was never doing that again. Standing alone in the crush of the pub, she began to notice male eyes upon her, and boys at the bar glancing at her and making comments to each other. Nausea rose in her belly and she felt the crowd around her spin a bit. The CD machine in the corner kicked into action and a Luke Bryan song crashed over the sound of raised voices and filled the room with a burst of country rock sexiness. A bunch of girls squealed in delight and grabbed each other for a dance just as Jack returned.
‘I got you a water,’ he said with a wink, offering her a glass with brown liquid in it.
‘That’s not water,’ Drift said, frowning up at him.
‘Yes it is,’ Jack shouted, raising his own glass to hers and chinking it. ‘Water with a little bit of whisky. Makes you frisky.’
Drift looked at the drink, then back to Jack. ‘Noooo,’ she said, pushing it away.
‘C’mon,’ he cooed, ‘don’t look at me like that. Cheers.’ He raised his glass and sculled it, offering her the glass again.
‘I don’t drink,’ she said firmly.
Jack looked at her, a tiny movement in his eyebrow and a glimmer of disapproval on his face. He shrugged. ‘Oh well, more for me. You only live once,’ he said, downing the other. He bent towards her ear, his breath like fire. ‘I’ll get you a water.’
Drift didn’t answer him. Instead she nodded and looked about her as he disappeared into the crowd for the bar again. She watched the girls bump and grind. The men leaning on pool cues whooped when someone sank a shot. She looked at the TV flashing news up on the wall in the corner. An earthquake. A war. A car crash. She saw the sweep of eyes turning at once to see the footy results blink up on the screen.
Drift knew that Jack was wrong . . . you didn’t only live once. After hearing Charlie talk, she knew you were around forever, but you were only ever here on this Earth with your heart beating fleetingly, so it was best to live awake to the world, and to peacefulness and nature and love. Not masking it with alcohol or distractions. Yet here she was in a bash and crash bar with someone she barely knew. Suddenly her adventuring felt wearisome. She wondered, if the room were filled with people from The Planet, how different would the vibe be? She knew, as intrigued by Jack as she was, he was no Eli. During their time on the road together, Ei had been so mindful of her. Never egotistical or pushy, like this bloke.
In the hubbub of the pub she felt as if she were in a bubble, her desolation and isolation made even more apparent in the crush and the noise. Sleeping people, she thought, hearing Sophia’s words in her head, before instantly trying to push her feelings of judgement away. Jack and his mates were being friendly. But Sophia had been right, Drift thought as she watched them cluster at the bar for more grog. These people were asleep. The planet was imploding all around them with overpopulation and greed. The landscape outside was virtually a desert and the rural town in ruins. Surely that was a neon sign that things were really crook, but in here, no one seemed concerned.
She wanted to be asleep too. If she were asleep like them, then she wouldn’t have to feel the pain of the world as intensely as she did. She wouldn’t have to bear witness to the violence humans measured out to each other and to Mother Nature. She was just so over the world and herself.
Drift forced a smile at Jack when he returned. She made herself take in just how ridiculously good looking he was as he passed her a glass. She frowned. It was brown liquid — this time with bubbles in it.
