While she worked with her young horse in the yard, Alice could see Jeremy loitering aimlessly around the shed, and she read slight dejection in his posture. It was Sunday and as usual she’d been to church that morning with her grandparents, but Jeremy had declined the invitation to accompany them to town. His bruises were almost healed now, but he hadn’t been back to the pub since the fight. His reluctance to talk about it had more or less confirmed for Alice that she had been the cause.
This morning he’d gone instead to the Cedar Tree stockyards to replace some rotten timber. Now he was leaning against the ute, watching her handling the flighty Arab mare. Trying to win the suspicious animal’s confidence was a painstaking process, and at times it seemed that for every step forwards with the nervy creature, there were two steps back.
It was when she was working with animals that Alice most wished she’d known her father. According to Sam, he’d been quite remarkable when it came to handling horses and dogs. It puzzled her that someone who cared so much about animals would have so little interest in his own daughter. Did he ever think of her and wonder what she was like? Or did he, like her mother, just consider her to be an unfortunate accident? How she wished she could pick his brains now.
Still, during the past week Alice felt she had made good progress. The mare now let Alice rub her all over, even inside her ears and under her belly. She could also pick up the mare’s feet without fear of her kicking out, as she’d done initially if anyone had even bent to touch her hooves. And she was starting to lead beautifully. In the beginning, she’d furiously resisted any tension on the lead rope, pulling back and even rearing. But now she’d learned that as soon as she cooperated and moved closer to Alice, the pressure was removed. Alice believed the animal was extraordinarily intelligent, and this inspired her to persist.
But today Alice cut the session short and let the filly loose into the night paddock. It was clear to her that Jeremy was in greater need of attention than the horse. She carried her gear over to the shed where he was still lingering beside the ute. He looked at her sheepishly and explained, ‘I was just heading back out to Cedar Tree.’
‘Do you want a hand?’ Alice offered.
He perked up immediately. ‘You betcha! A Sunday date at the yards. Just you and me, baby!’
‘Don’t get too excited.’ Alice hung up her gear and jumped in to the ute.
As they drove along the track, she observed, ‘It can’t be too exciting for you on weekends here. You’ll be glad when you get your licence back.’
She waited for a witty confirmation. But all Jeremy said was, ‘Hell, I can think of worse things. This old place isn’t so bad. Can’t complain about the company anyway.’ He winked at her.
Most of the solid old ironbark rails of the Cedar Tree yards were still sound, but the gates had been made from planks of lighter timber and many of them were splintering or rotten. Last time Lower Cedar Tree paddock had been mustered, two more gates had been broken by weaners squeezing their heads through the gaps. For the past five years, Sam had been patching the gates with smaller pieces of timber and wire, and a proper repair job was now long overdue.
After the first ten minutes of work, the pair had a good system going. Jeremy was measuring the replacement planks and cutting them with the chainsaw. Alice fixed them in place with a G-clamp, drilled the bolt holes and reused the old bolts to fix them on. The recycled bolts were a bit rough and rusty, so Alice used a small sledgehammer to bang them through, before greasing them up and screwing on the nuts.
One bolt proved particularly stubborn, and after several bangs with the hammer she pulled it out again and bent over to inspect it. She made sure the two holes were properly lined up then replaced the bolt. She stood up suddenly and swung the hammer with more gusto than before. But on the backwards stroke, it hit something behind her, and Alice heard an agonised grunt.
She spun around in horror just in time to see Jeremy crumple and drop. He lay on the ground in the foetal position, issuing a groan.
‘Oh no! Jeremy, are you alright?’ Alice flung the hammer away and dropped to her knees beside him. She lifted his head onto her lap.
‘Vicious bloody woman,’ he moaned.
‘Where did I get you?’ she asked urgently.
‘Fair in the family jewels,’ he croaked, then groaned again.
‘Oh Jeremy, I’m so sorry! I swung that hammer as hard as I could!’ Alice stroked his forehead soothingly. ‘Can I get you something? A drink of water?’
Jeremy looked up into her guilt-stricken face and suggested hopefully, ‘Can you kiss it better?’ He spoke in his normal voice this time, his eyes twinkling.
Alice instantly stopped stroking and pushed him roughly up into a sitting position. ‘You seem to be recovering. I think you’ll live.’ She spoke wryly, to hide her immense relief.
‘Cruel, hard wench,’ Jeremy complained as he clambered to his feet.
‘You’re the cruel one, to scare me like that. Did I even hurt you?’ She could now see he was absolutely fine.
‘It did hurt a bit! You hurt my pride!’
‘Well, I hope you got a thrill out of upsetting me so much,’ Alice said accusingly.
Jeremy looked at her slyly. ‘You must like me a bit then? To be so upset?’
‘I don’t enjoy inflicting pain on any creature,’ Alice said calmly.
‘Oh . . . ta. I’m honoured. You mean you’d feel no different if it was a cane toad you’d belted?’
She laughed out loud, any anger at his trick gone.
Jeremy hung his head in mock sorrow. ‘You really know how to build a bloke up.’
As they drove home, Jeremy was still tingling from the sensation of Alice’s fingers stroking his head and elated from the few minutes of lying in her lap.
‘How are your family jewels now?’ Alice asked as they pulled in to the shed.
‘Right as rain.’ Jeremy grinned. ‘Not like I’ll ever be needing ’em anyway. No chance of me having any kids.’
Alice looked at him questioningly.
‘Marriage and kids,’ he continued. ‘You won’t ever catch me falling into that old trap.’ He spoke confidently, but his intention was more to convince himself than Alice. Since meeting her, his once-firm resolution against marriage had started to weaken, and this frightened him. His own experience of family life hadn’t been a good one and he’d escaped it as soon as he could. Now he could do what he liked, when he liked, without answering to anyone. And he wanted to keep it that way.
‘What were you doing there anyway? Right behind me?’ Alice asked with a probing look.
Jeremy suddenly felt like a small boy who’d been sprung stealing cookies. ‘Do you really wanna know? . . . You were bending over, and your butt in those jeans was just too bloody tempting. I came over to pinch it, then chickened out at the last minute.’ He examined her face warily, not sure how she’d take this revelation. ‘That’s when you hit me.’
She laughed softly to herself before replying, ‘Well, I guess you won’t be trying that again in a hurry.’