Clementine sat down on the edge of the escarpment. Her home was nestled between two hills, hunched like shoulders around the little cottage. Looking out at this view, she liked to think that perhaps the valley hadn’t changed all that much since the first Australians were there, picking their way along well-trodden paths, sitting in that same spot watching the changing hues of the forest below.
Yesterday morning’s confrontations flooded into her head again. She’d been carried away with her big-city lawyer act, charging on from Gerard’s office to track down Cranfield, putting herself in the line of fire. Cranfield’s challenge was, she realised, not a threat after all. But it was close, very close, a warning of sorts. Her escape plan was becoming more detailed now. She could pack up and move on, hire an agent in Earlville to find a tenant for the cottage. She could even save some money from the rent if she lived lean.
She imagined Clancy feeling like his life had only just begun before it started falling apart. She had felt like that—like her entire world had drained away overnight, leaving a brown sludge of sump oil, a stain on the concrete.
But it wasn’t just her world…there was a family, a child. She felt the panic creep in, her heart rate rising. She did the exercise in her head, the one the counsellor had taught her, took a few deep breaths.
Pocket arrived back from his scouting mission at a run, tongue hanging out. He skidded to a halt in the gravel on the path, looked up at her and sped off again. She watched him disappear into the scrub.
She gazed out over the view, drinking in the eucalypt greens and the calm of the valley. Everybody needs one break in life. That had been her dad’s saying. She, of course, had enjoyed every opportunity that growing up white and middle-class could offer. She didn’t deserve any more chances. But Clancy did. And Melissa. And their child.
Something was going on. Something dark and hidden that Clancy, a guy who’d given her his all on the footy field, felt he must lie about. Someone had to find out what the hell was going on to turn his life upside down like this. It might as well be someone with as little to lose as she had.
She dumped her groceries on the passenger’s seat and shut the car door, locking it for good measure. Relaxing deeper into the seat, she let out a sigh of relief. Every trip into town these days was an ordeal, everyone wanting to know if the Cats could win without Clancy. She felt like a magician who’d lost her assistant, expected to pull a rabbit from the hat.
The Valley News had published its usual Monday morning report on the game. It had been careful not to catastrophise the loss, not to crush the hopes of its readers. Towards the end it had noted, in passing, the fact that there were no Indigenous players in the seniors now, after the loss of Clancy Kennedy, who had left the team for ‘personal reasons’.
Clouds were gathering as she drove up Main Street. There’d been more rain overnight and there was more on the way. In Sydney she had undercover parking, took a lift from the basement to her seventh-floor apartment. Rain didn’t mean much there: an umbrella between taxi and office, car and coffee shop, taxi and club. Out here it affected everything, everyone. The farmers had been cautious when it first started six weeks ago, then jubilant when it continued. Up at the cottage, the backyard was a series of brown puddles, and the ground around Pocket’s kennel had turned into a thick cake-batter sludge. Every time he came through the dog door there’d be another trail of paw-prints to clean up in the kitchen.
Not that it worried her. Nobody on this dry continent would begrudge the farmers rain. The dams were full and the livestock grazed on great pillowed clumps of grass, almost knee-height. CTS had benefited, of course, recording its highest revenues ever as farmers invested in new equipment and serviced the old. A few of the out-of-work miners had picked up jobs there, she’d heard, all as casuals, with many more lining up at Centrelink. She thought of Clancy and Melissa, trying to get by on the dole.
The light was fading. A man was walking out of the hardware shop. She recognised his gait—the long, loping strides of a tall man. Rowan Dempsey from Dempsey’s Handyman Van was a slow mover, his hips swinging languidly with each step. She felt something flutter in her stomach, tapped her thumbs on the steering wheel nervously. All the things that needed doing around the cottage began flying into her head. The drip from the shower was slowly getting worse, she could no longer open the kitchen window, and the front door latch had given up the ghost. She’d had to jam the door shut with a wedge of timber. Worst of all, she was pretty sure the stink she could smell when the wind blew from the west was coming from the septic tank.
She jumped out of the car and jogged over.
‘Rowan,’ she called as she approached. He turned towards the voice. ‘Hi,’ she said. ‘Just saw you walking past and remembered my septic stinks.’
He chuckled.
Shit. Going from awkward to downright embarrassing. ‘I mean, I didn’t mean you remind me of…Oh, far out…I mean, I thought maybe you could come by, look at a few things need doing around the house.’
‘Yeah, no worries,’ he said. ‘Tomorrow all right?’