Nina put down the phone and turned to Mum and Lockie. ‘That was Ric. He was wrong about Max being in town. He’s gone fishing, and it looks like Dad’s gone after him.’
Her mother’s face paled. ‘I’m worried,’ she said. ‘Jim’s usually so level-headed, but when it comes to that man . . .’
‘I’d go fetch him back,’ said Lockie, ‘but there’s no boat. Do you think if I asked next door at Killara . . .?’
‘They don’t have a boat,’ said Nina. ‘It was nicked a few weeks ago, cut from its moorings.’
‘Want me to try further afield?’ he said. ‘See if I can borrow one up the river?’
‘If you hadn’t given Dad the keys in the first place, we wouldn’t need a boat.’
‘Don’t blame Lockie,’ said Mum. ‘After all, it is your father’s boat.’
Nina groaned. ‘No, it’s not, Mum. I’m sick of this. You and Dad act like you still own Red Gums. The Pelican’s my boat, it came with the place when I bought it.’ Frustration and a creeping fear overcame prudence and the hurt on Mum’s face wasn’t enough to silence her. ‘Things were just fine before you all came,’ she said. ‘Then Lockie goes and pokes his nose where it’s not wanted, and Dad jumps on the bandwagon.’ She threw her hands in the air. ‘Now look where we are.’
‘They were just trying to help . . .’ Mum said.
‘Not helping,’ said Nina. ‘Interfering.’
Her mother left the kitchen, stiff-backed and stern-faced.
Nina avoided Lockie’s gaze. He filled the kettle and put it on the stove to boil. ‘You were pretty rough on your mum,’ he said as he dropped teabags into cups. ‘But you’re right. I had no business going up the diversion, and I shouldn’t have given Jim the keys when he was so wild. I’m sorry.’ He took a sugar bowl down from a shelf.
‘Pick the ants out first,’ she said. Lockie peered into the bowl and foraged around with a teaspoon. It was hard to stay mad with Lockie. If it wasn’t for him and his suspicions, Max would have got away with sucking the river dry. She really should be thanking him.
Lockie thrust a mug of tea into her hand and put another on the table. ‘Why don’t you take this to your mother? She could probably use it.’
Nina gave a tight smile. ‘I shouldn’t have talked to her like that. It’s all true, mind you. Mum and Dad do forget that Red Gums is mine now. But I’ll go eat humble pie anyway. Lord knows Mum’s got enough to worry about without me adding to it.’
Mum wasn’t in the lounge room. She wasn’t in the bathroom or the spare room or the main bedroom. Nina knocked softly on the last door along the hall. Nothing. She knocked again, a bit harder this time. ‘Come in,’ said a small voice. Her mother lay on the narrow bed under the window, propped up on the cushion from the wickerwork chair, staring into space. The room had hardly changed from when Nina was a child. The same horsey curtains. The same rose-pattern wallpaper. The same sweet musty smell. Only her mother had changed.
Mum looked at her, gave a shuddering sigh, then turned away again. Nina offered her the tea. Her mother sat up a bit straighter and took the mug. ‘Thank you, dear.’ Jinx pushed past and went to sit beside the bed.
‘My mouth runs away with me sometimes,’ said Nina. ‘You know that.’ Mum nodded wearily and sipped the tea. Her hand trembled a little. ‘Don’t worry. Dad will be back any minute.’ Nina settled herself into the little chair. It was too low to the ground to comfortably accommodate her long legs and her knees stuck up comically. ‘What’s the worst that could happen?’
Her mother wore a strange half-smile. ‘Your father fell in love with me when I was just fifteen years old,’ she said. ‘Forty-two years, and he’s never once let me down, never once looked at another woman.’ Mum’s hand was trembling so hard now that a little wave of tea washed over the lip of her mug. ‘I couldn’t bear to lose him.’
‘You’ve worked yourself up,’ said Nina soothingly. ‘Dad’ll be fine. I’ll go give him another ring.’ She turned on the fan, left Mum with the tea and went back to the kitchen. For once Jinx didn’t follow her. Dad still wouldn’t pick up. What was the time? Four o’clock already. He’d been gone for hours now.
Lockie was leaning on the verandah post outside. He’d helped himself to a beer. Nina tipped her lukewarm tea down the sink, grabbed a beer herself and joined him outside. The air was oppressively hot.
‘There’s not even a breeze,’ she said.
‘You know Bob Carson? Grows corn out of Cunnamulla. To hear him tell it, it’s so hot out there the corn’s popping in the paddock before they can harvest it.’ She gave him what she hoped was a withering look. ‘And they have to put ice cubes in the chooks’ water, or else they lay hard-boiled eggs.’
‘Stop it,’ she said, but a smile sneaked out just the same.
‘That’s better.’ Lockie grinned and finished his beer.
‘Did you take photos of the wheels?’
‘My oath.’ Lockie scrolled through his phone and handed it to her.
Dozens of shots. Wheels jammed with sticks and waterweed. Wheels drowned by high channel levels and mud, so they couldn’t turn. The evidence was indisputable. Max had made a travesty of all her carefully devised water-saving measures. How long had it been going on? The wheels in the photos looked like they hadn’t turned for a long time. It made her sick to think of the river’s lifeblood, pouring into Max’s dams, night and day, maybe for months. Pouring into Max’s dams even now.
She gave Lockie back the phone. His jaw was set in an angry line, his expression grim. It was hard to know how to feel, having him here after what she’d done last night. They may have broken up, but only just. She couldn’t shake a creeping guilt. ‘It’s about time I thanked you, Lockie.’ She raised her beer to him. ‘Don’t know why I never checked that diversion myself. Guess I didn’t want to rock the boat. Didn’t want to doubt my neighbour. Didn’t want any more trouble.’
‘Glad I could help.’ Lockie’s face grew soft. He moved towards her, as if for a kiss, then stopped himself. ‘I’d do anything for you, Nine, you know that.’ She had a sudden urge to ask him about what he’d told Ric all those years ago, about the foolish brag that had changed her life. But it wasn’t the right time.
He held out his hand. ‘Friends?’
Nina shook it and smiled. ‘Friends, but that’s all.’
‘If you say so.’ Lockie finished his drink. ‘What do you want to do?’
‘Get those bloody wheels turning,’ she said. ‘As soon as Dad arrives back with the boat. And afterwards, I’m telling whoever will listen. State Water Corp, Irrigation Commission, Department of Primary Industry, the Cotton Growers Guild . . . the cops. I’ll shout it from the rooftops, about what a lowlife scumbag runs Donnalee. Just wait till the floodplains farmers hear about this. Max will have a war on his hands.’
Lockie cracked his knuckles. ‘Suits me.’
It wouldn’t suit Ric. What would he make of her conducting a campaign of accusations against his father? She swigged her beer for a little Dutch courage. Ric might not like it, but he’d bloody well have to put up with it. After all, this problem was partly of his making. If he’d had enough sense to check the dethridge wheels himself, Dad would never have taken off after Max like that. More importantly, megalitres of precious river water might have been saved. Nina squirmed as the crawling doubt returned. Ric couldn’t have known, could he? Known, and not told? The thought was too unsettling. ‘I’ll go down to the mooring and wait for Dad,’ said Nina. ‘Could you stay with Mum?’
‘Sure,’ said Lockie. ‘I’ll stay.’
Jinx padded onto the jetty, whined and gazed downstream. Nina called him over to where she sat, bare legs dangling, and hugged his soft golden neck. How often had she sat like this? Nina stared at the brown Bunyip, crawling by beneath her feet. There was a time years ago, when her toes would have trailed in the river. When schools of skittering rainbow fish skimmed the water. When the red gum canopies came alive at dusk with roosting Major Mitchell’s cockatoos, proud crests banded red and gold. How long had it been since she’d heard their soft whistles as they sang themselves to sleep?
Nina hauled herself to her feet, stiff and sore from sitting in one place too long. She checked her phone for the umpteenth time. According to Ric, Max wasn’t back either. The knot of fear tightened in her belly. Something was seriously wrong.
The late afternoon sun hung low, firing the sky, turning the river blood-red. Sombre shadows slunk from the opposite bank and made familiar objects strange. Fallen trees became skeletons. Half-submerged logs looked like bodies. Nina turned from the river. Just a trick of the light. She hugged herself tight, skin goosebumped in spite of the heat. Somebody just walked over your grave, that’s what Mum would say. Jinx whined again, louder this time, and ran to the end of the jetty. Nina followed him, ears straining. The faraway thrum of a motor. She’d recognise that sound anywhere. The Pelican, and it was on its way home.