He doesn’t so much wave as lift his right hand out of his shorts pocket and waggle the fingers fractionally then slide the hand back into the pocket.
His companions are oblivious to the exchange, as is Dad, who’s caressing the elephant skin briefcase while talking Mum and himself into buying it, but Rosie clocks me mouthing hello, follows my line of sight and makes a rapid and expert appraisal of all four of them. It makes her day. She grabs Dad’s hand and tugs on it and points and asks the whole of Greatermans, “Did you see that? Tessa can’t even wait for her fourteenth birthday before she starts eyeing up potential mates!”
Dad goes, “See what?”
The old couple a few steps away from him temporarily lose interest in the briefcases, simper fondly at Rosie and then at me, shaking their heads and tut-tutting, but so nicely, like they think I’m just cute and silly and a bit of an air-head. I’m thinking about how I’ll kill her when we get home and how the deed will be carried out slowly.
Mum draws a blank as well and says “Mates?” and Dad insists, “See what, Rosie? What are you talking about, girl?”
“She spots a group of four blokes and starts waving at them. They were not bad looking, I’ll give her that.”
“I did not wave. Stop lying Rosie!”
“Well one of them saw you ogling at them and waved at you and you said hello. Okay, you were lip syncing hello while you were making eyes at them. I saw you.”
Her face is bubbling at me with wicked delight at the idea that she might just have caught me out revealing my true self, but at the same time is so full of affection that my murderous self sighs and creeps back into its shell.
I’ll have forgotten about her false accusation by the time we get back to the car. What’s freaking me out is the notion that there’s a scenario in an alternative world in which Nathan and his friends pass across the ground floor of this store just ten minutes earlier. At the time we were standing at the display of matching luggage sets Mum was so taken with, all of us facing out towards the aisle that leads to the Stanley Avenue exit. In this alternative world things happen pretty much as they did in this one, up to a point. He notices me and I notice him in precisely the same second, he lifts his hand out of his pocket and waggles his fingers at me, I mouth hello and Rosie observes all of this. But instead of being some fifteen metres away and within seconds of reaching the street outside, they’re right in front of us when she hollers, “Did you see that? Tessa…” etc, etc, etc and remain within earshot while we exchange spats about me waving, not waving and making eyes at four blokes because I’m just about to turn fourteen and am looking for a mate. In whatever chains of events led us all to be in Greatermans today, timing was on my side. He’s gone, and he heard none of it.
“Rosie, I know him,” I sigh. “The one who waved? I haven’t a clue who the others were.”
Typically, she’s decided it’s history now and is edging off towards the handbags.
*
I do a final check of my girth, put my leg back down and cluck my tongue so that Induna moves off after Star Point. He’s eager and tries to trot to catch up but Gill’s told me not to let him do that, so I check him and try to make him extend his walk instead.
She’s watching over her shoulder.
“Good walk there, Tess. Well done.”
“He knows now, I think, what I want him to do. I’m trying to visualise Bravo’s amazing extended walk.”
Bravo. Bravo looking amazing. Nathan.
“We saw Nathan in town today. I was in Greatermans with Mum and Dad and Rosie. I don’t think I’ve ever seen him in the city before you know. Only here or at school or at Turnpike.”
She doesn’t seem surprised and just replies, “Oh, okay,” then, “He took himself off fairly early this morning. Was he alone?”
That’s the other unusual thing. He wasn’t.
“He was with three guys, all a bit older than him possibly? One in camo trousers and a khaki T-shirt and the others in civvies. They were on the ground floor, just leaving through the Stanley Avenue entrance. We didn’t speak. He saw me and waved but then they all left.”
“Ah, that’ll be Jed and Carl and possibly Roland. Was the camo-clad one bushy bearded? A dark beard?”
“Ja, that’s right.”
“Definitely Roland then. He’s in the Selous Scouts. Jed and Carl are two of Dad’s guys on the Rusape site at the moment and Roland is Carl’s brother. Nath’s been on site several days a week through the holidays. He’s been hanging out with them a bit lately and they all seem to get on like a house on fire.”
She gives her gurgling laugh. “I just hope this new socialising thing doesn’t go to his head and lead to him going completely off the rails, getting tanked up and ending up face down in a ditch somewhere!”
“He doesn’t drink that much though?”
He wouldn’t though, would he?
“Nah, not really. He’ll have a beer with Dad in the evenings sometimes but otherwise only at any parties we have. Hey, where do you want to go today? The tracks round the Watsons’ farm?”
It takes us twenty minutes to get there, through quiet residential roads basking in the hazy early summer sun and then across the scrubby Crown Land – still brown and dry from the winter – at the top of Milton Close, and into one of the back entrances to the Watson place. Our conversation loops this way and that and Gill’s full of her plans for taking in up to three horses at a time for training. Once we start trotting round the white sandy tracks of the farm, with a barrier of tall, tattered gum trees on our left and stalky wheat stubble on our right, she suggests, “Trot twice round the usual three fields, then canter once round all three, trot once more and canter again the final time? That way we build up on what we did the last time.”
“Sounds like a plan.”
There’s a lull while we settle the horses into a rhythm. Five minutes pass, during which both of them snort several times. Then they go quiet and it’s just the steady beat of their strides and the faint crunching of Star Point chewing his bit that I can hear. Halfway round the first track, Gill looks over at me.
“It’s good to know Nath’s arranged something with the boys, even if it’s just a trip to town. You probably don’t realise what a big deal that is. Well, no, sorry. I guess you do.”
It is a big deal for sure. I watch her working on words. Eventually she says, “He just never seems to need anyone. Or to want to need anyone. As I’ve told you, he’s dead reluctant to get close to any other person, even us. Especially us, unfortunately. Since he was seven. The fact is, he really is grateful to my folks for all they’ve given him and for taking him as their son, and I reckon it’s because of that that he backs away. In case he lets them down. He can’t seem to understand why they’d bother with him.”
We’re nearly back to where we entered the farm and turn left where the track branches off through a gap in the gum trees, take another sharp left and start on our circuit of the next field.
“Does he remember his parents?”
“Nathan? Hmmm, I reckon he does, to a limited extent. Mum and Dad were always open with him about the fact that he’s adopted. But trying to get him to talk about what memories he does have, especially of his mother, really is like getting blood out of a stone. None of us have succeeded. Those kids at school who called him a loner? They didn’t know a thing about him. He’s been his own worst enemy in cultivating that untouchable, unsociable image, so everyone’s left him alone and that’s how he wants it.”
She puts her reins in one hand and points across the stubble field with the other. “See the tractor over there on the far side? That’ll be Leo Watson. We’ll have to make sure we don’t stop to talk or we’ll be here until sunset, bless him. I’ll just shout hi, lovely to see you, we’re working on our fitness training or something and we’ll keep going. Whatever you do, don’t ask him how he is.”
The horses have spotted the slowly moving tractor and are doing passable giraffe impressions, all four ears locked onto it. Star Point’s having some backward thoughts.
“Get on!” Gill growls, kicking him in the ribs so that he leaps forward, humping his back, a bit of white foam flicking from his mouth.
Leo trundles his way towards us as we’re trotting towards him, sending a cloud of the white sandy dust skywards behind the tractor. That’ll make us all cough when we get absorbed by it. He observes us with a wry, closed mouth smile that’s lopsided in his long, sun-hardened face, the floppy blue bush hat rammed down low over his eyes so that his round spectacles touch it from below. He has very large ears, which are also up against the short brim of the hat. He draws level with us.
“Gilly Owen!” he shouts above the roar of the tractor’s engine. We’ve pulled the horses off the track onto the stubble by about five metres and there’s a bit of waving and a shouted exchange of Gill’s scripted greetings.
“Hi Leo! Lovely day.”
“Stunning hachi you’ve got there girl.”
“He’s gorgeous isn’t he? I’m using your land for fitness training again, Leo. Many, many thanks!”
“You’re welcome, my love. How is…”
“He’s very uppity and bucks like a bronc. We’d better get going or he’ll have me on the ground. See you soon!”
Now that he’s well away from Leo’s tractor, Star Point is picking his way carefully through the stony ground amongst the stubble, focused and relaxed and innocent, as if butter wouldn’t melt.
*
“Nathan’s not back yet,” Gill observes, standing at the back door with her arms folded. “Looks like he may be out jawling this evening.”
“And ending up in a ditch?”
“Hey, he’ll be fine. I do wonder if he’s going about with those guys because he knows damned well that when he gets to go into the army he’s going to have to be part of a team whether he likes it or not, and that everyone’s lives will pretty much depend on that bond. The boys will have plenty of war stories to swap and entertain each other with, so he’ll be getting a taste of what army life will be like. Sure, there’ll be drinking and getting rowdy but it’s what soldiers do. We can’t prevent that.”
The way she’s talking makes it sound like he just can’t wait to go and is gearing up for some excitement. Like Timothy.
“Is he looking forward to getting drafted? I can’t believe he is.”
“God, I don’t know. He’s never said. It’s always been so hard to know what he’s thinking. He’s stepped up his jogging regime and he’s started dragging me down to the squash courts at the Alex club twice a week, so he’s trying to get himself fitter. What would I feel? Would I be filled with some sort of patriotism, or be dead against it and risk prison as a conchie or just be bloody scared shitless? If I ask him though, I know I’ll get nowhere.”
As I’m mounting the bike, she giggles, “You never know. Maybe he’ll even find himself a girlfriend!”