Torrens’ Patrol was parked on an angle in the driveway like he’d rushed in or just couldn’t be bothered straightening up. She drove down past it into the backyard, rolling carefully over the rain-softened ground and turned in behind the shed so the Commodore would not be visible from the road. She’d driven in a state of high tension all the way, nervously checking in her rear-view mirror, but seeing nothing unusual. There was a white hatchback with an old man at the wheel, and a big charcoal grey sedan on the main road out of Barnforth but she lost sight of it once they hit Piama.
The dogs bounded up to her as she opened the car door, Pocket poking his nose in then backing up to let her out, his tail wagging at top speed. She gave his ears a tousle and he reached around to get a few reciprocating licks in. Sarge, so polite, stood back, waiting for the crumbs and grinning with black rubbery lips. She went over to him, stroked the muscles through his neck and down to his shoulders, her hand tracing his size and power. She’d thrown a dangerous ultimatum at Fullerton; now she felt a thimbleful of her fear ebb away.
Helen didn’t have a dog. What if she had? Would things have been different?
She looked around the corner of the shed—no sign of anyone on the road. She knocked on the door, making it clang and wobble in the frame, heard movement from within.
‘Torrens. It’s me.’
‘Yeah, yeah. Hang on.’
The door squeaked open. Torrens hardly looked at her, turning his back and walking inside. She followed him in. He’d shaved off his beard and looked five years younger. Inside he had a camp stretcher, a fold-out table with a gas stove and a pot, an esky, his duffel bag on a chair in the corner, a pair of shorts folded on top. There was a football lying under a bench. Otherwise, the shed was clean and tidy.
‘I’m heading out tomorrow. Get out of your hair,’ he said, leaning against the wall near the cobweb-cloaked window.
‘Oh,’ she said, her heart sinking. ‘I was kind of hoping you might stay for a bit longer.’
‘Gotta get going, things to do.’
‘Back to work?’ she said hopefully.
‘Nah, I quit the job. Don’t need it now.’
He’d been so pleased with that job. More than pleased—proud, determined. She remembered how he’d bought her dinner and a beer to celebrate his first pay, the only honest money he’d earnt in his entire life to that point.
‘So what’ve you got on the go then?’
He shrugged his shoulders, bent down, rummaged around in the esky, pulled out a bottle of water and slowly unscrewed the cap, avoiding her eyes as he took a gulp.
This was not good, not good at all.
‘Got anything stronger in that esky?’ she asked.
‘Sorry, knocked off the last beer earlier on.’
She nodded, nudged her toe at the corner of a rubber mat on the floor, looked up. ‘Come up to the house?’
‘Nah. Reckon I’ll head up to the pub shortly.’
This was all her fault. This cold lack of interest, this miserable void. She had collapsed whatever it was they had, a beautiful friendship, into this hollow, airless cave.
‘Matty. I need to talk to you,’ she said softly. ‘I need to apologise. I mean I do apologise. I’m sorry. I’m just so…’ Her arms raised halfway and flopped by her sides again. ‘So sorry. About everything.’
Torrens screwed the cap back on the water, slowly, blinked twice, searching her face. Blinked again with ferocity.
‘I’ve hurt you. I know that. I lied to you and I used you,’ she shook her head, scarcely able to understand how she’d got to this point. ‘I’ve…well, I’ve ruined everything.’
Torrens said nothing but when she looked at him she thought his eyes were glistening. A big man with a soft heart.
Her apology was genuine, more than he could know, but she had come here inside his shed to get something. She wanted his expertise and experience, a second perspective on her precarious position from someone who knew about these things. And, she admitted to herself as he stood there in the backlight in his footy shorts, huge tree-trunk thigh muscles, shoulders the width of a single bed…She wanted the security, the comfort of facing whatever was coming with a man like Torrens at her side.
All of this was true. But now, standing in the cloistered heat of the shed, an ocean of distrust floating between them, she didn’t want anything from him. Nothing at all. She just wanted to go back to how it was before. Before she’d betrayed him. Just for tonight at least. Pleading with him was not the answer, so she picked up the footy, handballed it to herself a couple of times.
‘Skip the pub, come up to the house for dinner,’ she said.
He looked up at her, a slight change in his expression. He wanted to, she could see that. It was pride or mistrust or both that were stopping him. She couldn’t blame him. But he was going tomorrow—she must not waste this moment.
‘Listen mate’—using her coach’s voice—‘I’ve got two T-bone steaks and a six-pack inside and I’m not letting you leave until you’ve eaten your forty per cent.’ She handballed the footy to him.
He caught it.