‘It’s a bunch of bullcrap, that’s what it is. Flamin’ bureaucrats gone crazy,’ Patrick Mason bellowed, slamming his fist on the table in the kitchen.
‘Patrick, calm down. Remember your blood pressure,’ Del admonished before sending a searching look at Luke seated across from her. ‘So what on earth does all this biohazard stuff mean for the business?’
‘Biosecurity,’ Luke said calmly. ‘Well, there are going to have to be some changes. For starters, we’ll have to fence off areas and put up signs telling guests they can’t go in certain places.’ He turned the computer to show them the examples.
‘What! I’m not putting one of those hideous things up at the front gate,’ Del gasped as she stared in horror at the glaring red sign that warned visitors this was a biosecurity area. ‘My God, that would make you want to turn your car around and go straight home.’
Luke ignored his mother’s outburst. ‘We’re also going to have to make a direct road to the reception shed and designated parking areas. All vehicles coming onto the property have to be hosed down and cleaned if they go anywhere near the livestock, so it’ll mean putting up more fencing and signage. It’ll have to be monitored.’
His mother pulled the computer closer and read from the text. ‘Biosecurity zones or checkpoints?’ she said, looking over at her husband. ‘It sounds like some kind of army compound. Who on earth will want to get married in a prison camp?’
‘It’s probably not as bad as it sounds,’ Luke said wearily. It was as bad as it sounded and somehow he was going to have to figure out how to implement it.
‘What’s this about access to certain areas?’ Patrick asked.
‘It means we have to control movement around the property. We can’t have people, namely guests, traipsing all over the place.’
‘But what about the photo shoots? The riverbank. The old dairy? They love that old rustic ruin in wedding photos,’ Del said with a worried frown.
Luke shook his head. ‘The whole reason for biosecurity is to limit the spread of potential contamination.’
‘Oh, for goodness sake! What do they think wedding guests are going to bring in?’
‘I don’t know, Mum. I don’t think they had wedding guests in mind when they made the rules, but they’re still visitors and it says here that all visitors have to be signed in and out and have limited access.’
‘I am not signing my guests in and out like…well, like prison visitors,’ Del snapped.
‘Nah, we’re not doing this crap,’ Patrick said, leaning back in his chair and folding his arms across his chest.
‘Dad, it’s enforceable. Not only that, but they’ve said that there can be random audits at any time. That means they can come here and check that we’re following procedure and, if we aren’t, fine us.’
‘I’ve heard enough of this rot. I’m not having any part in it,’ Patrick said, pushing away from the table with a loud screech of his chair and leaving the room.
Luke slid his hands onto his head, linking his fingers as he stared at the barrage of information on the computer. As if he didn’t have enough to deal with already. ‘Dad’s right, it is shit,’ he muttered to his mother. ‘It’s going to mean a lot of stuffing around and more paperwork—like we aren’t already snowed under as it is.’ He glared at the computer screen. ‘But it has to be done.’
‘I suppose it does. You’ll work it out, you always do,’ his mother said, standing up to kiss the top of his head before leaving the kitchen.
Great, yep, leave it to Luke, he’ll sort it out.
With a long, low curse he opened up a new document on the computer to start sorting out a plan.
‘Come on, puss,’ Hayley called after tapping the can of cat food for a few minutes with no response. The last few days the cat had become decidedly less interested in food, whereas the previous week she’d been a virtual eating machine. She hoped it didn’t mean there was something wrong; it was a bit of a trip to take a sick animal to the vet around here. She’d wormed her on arrival and had been impressed by her rapid weight gain, to the point that she’d considered cutting back on feed because of the rather noticeable bulge that had been forming.
Putting the can down, Hayley went in search of the missing cat. There hadn’t been a mouse sighting in weeks and for that alone Hayley was willing to overlook the fact her rule of no cats in the bedroom was constantly ignored. ‘Where are you?’ Hayley called, searching each room. A tiny noise caught her attention as she walked down the hallway and into the laundry.
At first she didn’t see anything, until she poked her head around behind the hot water system and saw two big eyes blinking at her. ‘What are you doing in here?’ she asked, before she spotted three tiny mouse-like creatures snuggled protectively under the cat’s belly. They weren’t mice though, they were…kittens.
‘Holy cow,’ Hayley breathed, looking back at the cat, who was wearing a what-the-actual-hell-is-happening-to-me look.
As the initial shock wore off, Hayley did a double-take. ‘Hey! That’s my favourite shirt,’ she said, eyeing the stained T-shirt the four cats were lying on. ‘How did you even get that?’ Although she did recall leaving clothes on the floor of the laundry the other day. ‘Oh gross.’ Correction, it was her favourite shirt. ‘Well, you can’t lie there in that,’ Hayley said, grimacing at the mess, her hands on her hips as she considered her options.
Heading out to the shed, she found a cardboard box and a bag of old clothes she’d put out to go to Vinnies and took it all back into the laundry. When she’d made a comfy bed, she carefully sat the box next to the little family and reached for one of the tiny creatures. When she didn’t get mauled by their mother, she gently gathered the first one up and transferred it to the new bedding. She did the same with the other two, mother cat shadowing her final transfer and settling herself into the box around her babies.
‘There, I bet that feels better,’ Hayley said, feeling rather satisfied with herself.
She moved the cat food and water dishes closer to the box and sat down to watch them for a few minutes. She wasn’t sure how long it had been since they’d been delivered, but considering they’d still looked a little damp, and the stains on the T-shirt were still wet, it couldn’t have been more than a few hours.
‘Desexed my arse. I seriously must have sucker stamped on my forehead,’ she said to the cat, who was busy nuzzling her new babies. A reluctant smile tugged at Hayley’s face as she watched. Okay, so that made it pretty damn hard to resist, but seriously? Four cats? Well, on the upside, it should mean the end of any future mouse problems.
Later that morning she scooped up the car keys from the dish on the kitchen counter and headed for the back door. She’d been planning on leaving earlier for her shopping trip, until she’d got sidetracked playing cat midwife. But she wasn’t going shopping for groceries. Today she was shopping for a car.
Once she would never have considered parting with her Audi—she loved it—but the reality was, it just didn’t suit her needs anymore. It was a city car; it wasn’t designed for carrying hay and animals. As much as she’d love to keep it as a second car, it wasn’t practical to own two vehicles. It would sit in her shed for months on end without use. No, the time had come. She was going to have to trade her baby in.
New beginnings. That’s what this was, she thought as she drove along the winding roads, savouring the last time she’d sit in her zippy little red car.
The Audi had been the first new car she’d ever owned and had been bought from her first decent-sized royalty cheque. Hayley swallowed past a tightening throat. Sometimes thinking about the past caught her off guard. She needed to think of something else.
Hayley found her thoughts once again turning to what had happened out by the old tree. She still had no logical explanation, but when she was away from the farm she seemed to have more perspective. It was almost as though the more distance she put between herself and the property, the more breathing room she had.
It had to be the stress of moving and packing up her old life. She must have fallen asleep or something…except she didn’t recall waking up. Part of her was tempted to return to the spot to see if anything strange happened again, but her inner coward—the part of herself that wouldn’t watch scary movies or go outside at night to investigate strange noises—kept her from following through. A shiver ran through her body now as she remembered. Nope. She was not going back there alone again anytime too soon. Whatever she’d experienced, it still made her incredibly uncomfortable.
‘Morning, Ernie,’ Hayley said as the poker-faced man walked out from the office to serve her. While she’d waited for him to finish on the phone, she’d been reading the notices on the small board beside the counter. ‘What do you know about miniature belted Galloways?’ she asked him curiously.
‘They’re small and they taste good,’ Ernie shot back, already typing in her usual order of hay and laying pellets.
‘They’re the black ones with a white stripe across their middle, aren’t they?’
‘They can be dun or red sometimes too.’
‘What’s their temperament like?’
‘I dunno, they’re cows. They eat grass all day, crap and eat more grass.’
‘Reasonably. They’re still cattle though, not dogs,’ he warned. ‘Why?’
‘I’m thinking of getting a few.’
‘Doesn’t surprise me,’ he said dryly.
‘Do you know the people who are advertising them?’ she persisted, ignoring his usual world-weary tone. ‘Is there any reason they’re selling them?’
‘They’re city folk who come up on the weekends to play farmer. They’ve managed to overstock their property, apparently.’
It seemed like an ideal situation. They needed to get rid of a number of cattle and she needed to buy a few to help keep her grass under control. But she’d need to fix and add a few fences first.
‘I don’t suppose you’d know of anyone who does fencing, maybe a handyman who could build me a chicken coop too?’
‘I might know a bloke,’ he said, before tallying up her feed bill and taking the money. ‘Jason Weaver,’ he said. ‘Lives just up the road from you. Inverness is the name of his mother’s place. He might be able to do something.’
‘Thanks, I’ll drop in on my way home.’ She followed him back out to her car and waited for him to load the feed into the back.
‘Traded in the Audi,’ he said with a small grunt as he heaved the feed into the back of her shiny black four-wheel drive. ‘About time,’ he added.
‘Yeah, well, trying to vacuum bits of hay out of my boot was getting annoying.’
She was still getting used to the size of the monstrosity she’d just bought. She missed her snazzy little Audi. Driving this one around she felt like a kid wearing her father’s boots. There was so much space and she almost had to use a stepladder to climb into the damn thing, but it was safe, economical and practical—she’d done her homework this time.
‘Might make a farmer out of you yet,’ he said in his now familiar gruff tone.
Hayley blinked. Was that a compliment?
‘Or at least look the part,’ he added, closing the tailgate with a thud before walking back into the store.
Ah. Nope. False alarm. Still, she thought with a satisfied smile, she was slowly chipping away at that tough exterior of his. One day she’d win him over. Or die trying.
The weatherboard house sat in a clearing surrounded by a brown timber fence, both looking to have been freshly painted judging from the ladder still resting against one side of the house. Hayley climbed out of her car and opened the gate. She’d walked three steps when the sound of hysterical barking reached her, followed immediately by two small fox terriers racing towards her at alarming speed. Hayley paused, trying to decide if she should run back the way she’d come or run towards the house and pray someone was there to let her in. Instead she did neither, only froze in place and closed her eyes tightly as the two animals barked and yipped around her.
A loud, piercing whistle ripped through the air and the barking instantly ceased. Hayley opened an eye and saw a figure moving towards the path from the house. She breathed a sigh of relief and hoped she didn’t look too ridiculous.
A man with shaggy hair and stubble that had gone a shade past I forgot to shave for a few days hobbled towards her and Hayley mustered a smile of greeting. ‘Hi. I’m Hayley Stevens. I’ve just moved in up the road. Are you Jason?’ When he didn’t return her smile or comment straightaway, she rushed on to explain. ‘Ernie at the feed store gave me your name. He said you might be interested in doing some work for me.’
‘What kind of work?’ he asked, eyeing her frankly. Up close, she was surprised to see he was younger than she’d first assumed.
‘I’ve got a chicken coop I need building, and I’d like a bit of fencing done. Is that something you’d be interested in?’
He stood with one hand on his hip and rubbed his jaw with the other. ‘Yeah. Maybe. When do you need it done?’
‘As soon as you can fit it in.’
‘Yeah. All right. Leave it with me. I’ll drop over and take a look at the job and measure up.’
‘That would be great, thanks.’ She wasn’t sure when she’d be seeing him; hopefully leaving it with him wouldn’t mean six months from now.
Jason lifted his hand from his hip in a brief farewell, or he could have been waving her off like an annoying fly; either way, he then turned and hobbled back inside the house, leaving Hayley to return to her car and drive home with a mix of satisfaction and curiosity. Who was this Jason person? And what was with his limp?