‘If you like,’ came a voice behind her. Tom was standing there in his shorts and a blue singlet. He came up behind her and grabbed her by the hips. ‘Even in those undies, I would.’
‘Oh, for god’s sake, Tom!’ she said, juggling the hot cake tin, her wrist stinging and already rising in a red welt. ‘Can’t you hear Ned chucking a spaz? I’ve just fucking burnt myself and I’ve got to get Milly off the bus!’
‘Dressed like that? Old Trev will have a heart attack and crash the school bus.’
She pulled a face at him and frowned. ‘Why aren’t you harvesting?’ she said, dumping the cake and going to their bedroom to get Ned from his cot. The poor child felt like a steamed dim sim.
‘Too hot!’ shouted Tom from the kitchen. ‘Dad called it off for the rest of the arvo. Likely to start a fire with the machinery.’
‘Here,’ she said, passing Ned to Tom and filling up a sipper cup of water at the sink. ‘Can you mind him for a bit while I get Milly?’ She passed Tom the cup.
Tom made an apologetic face. ‘Dad wants me to go get parts.’
‘Well, why not meet the bus and take Milly with you to get the parts?’ she asked, a little impatiently.
Tom shook his head. ‘Poor Milly! It’s too hot for a trip back into town with her and you know it. Tell you what, I’ll wait with Ned. You go get her.’
‘Fine,’ said Stella, wincing as she ran her burnt hand under the tap.
‘Before you put your clothes back on, you know … could we?’ Tom said, waggling his dark eyebrows up and down, his eyes hopeful. ‘We can plonk Ned in front of the telly for two minutes. You know. An anniversary bonk? Just a quickie.’
Stella glanced at the clock. ‘Now? C’mon, Tom. There isn’t time.’
‘I know,’ he said sullenly. He planted a kiss on Stella’s sweat-covered forehead and took Ned with him into the tiny office, which was more like a cupboard. She heard him boot up the computer. She pulled on her sundress, shoved on her work boots and went out into the blistering heat to fetch Milly.
‘Welcome to my world, Nigella, welcome to my world!’
Stella had just set the steak out on the kitchen bench when the radio came to life. ‘Stella, you on channel?’
It was Tom. He delivered the news over the crackle of the two-way for Nancy in the homestead to hear too. News that they would harvest through until late, now the day had cooled a little. News that he wouldn’t be back till after ten that night.
‘And by the way, happy anniversary, babe. Over,’ he said. Stella hung up the radio handpiece, put the steaks back in the fridge, reached into the freezer to dig out two lemonade icy poles and thrust them at Milly and Ned. Then she flicked on the TV to ABC kids.
‘Watch him for me for a bit, please, Milly,’ she said. ‘Thanks, darling. Mummy needs a ten-minute power nap.’
Milly, perplexed by the sudden arrival of icy poles just before tea, nodded her little dark curly head at her mother and proceeded to open the treat for her little brother first, then herself. Stella shut the door of her bedroom, sat down on the bed and began to cry. She slid open the top drawer of the bedside table and pulled out the gift she had ordered for Tom. She undid the lid and as she did, smeared the tears away over her sweating hot face.
She had saved every cent for this anniversary gift for Tom. Money that she had made from selling two litters of kelpie pups she had bred. Her plan this evening had been to cook Tom up a big steak, have a beer with him once the kids were in bed, put on the new lingerie she’d ordered off the net, then give him his present. Then give him herself.
Inside the beautiful timber box was a thick leather belt, made by the local saddler, but what was most stunning about the belt was the buckle.
Stella, their tenth anniversary in mind, had a few months ago ventured round the back of the machinery shed where her husband’s old busted-up 1980 Holden WB Statesman sat slumped, wheel-less and rusting, on blocks beneath a pepper tree. The ute was just a body now, stripped of its engine, the three panels including the roof still dented from the night Tom had rolled it coming back with Stella from a B&S ball. He hadn’t been over the limit. Tom was reliable like that. Once they knew neither of them weren’t seriously injured, they had joked that the dopey roo they had hit on the slippery gravel road must’ve been drinking, the way it had suddenly wobbled in front of them.
But she had felt Tom’s sadness when the mechanic had told them the ute was a write-off. His hurt was tangible. He loved that ute. She loved that ute. It was a link to the days when their love had first begun to bloom.
With a screwdriver and a small hammer, Stella had carefully chipped off the metal steering-wheel badge. The badge was silver and held the logo of the proud Holden lion that sat with its paw on a globe. She had rubbed the badge on her jeans as she walked back home, then set the collector’s metal disc on the kitchen table and carefully and intricately sketched her design around it. It had cost her fifty bucks to ship the thing to the States, but the craftsman there had done a brilliant job of setting the ute badge into a rodeo-size buckle with the wording 1980 WB Statesman amid looped swirls and entwined ropes of silver and gold. On the back, in fancy steel writing, he had inscribed: Happy 10th anniversary, Tom. Eternal love, Stella.
Stella ran a fingertip over the tiny bumps and curves of the beautiful buckle. Then she put the lid on the box, threw the lingerie that was still in the postage bag into the cupboard and put the lid on her plans for a romantic evening with her man. Then she closed the door on her feelings. She had kids to feed and get to bed.
A little later, Stella fell asleep beneath the whir of the fan and didn’t even wake when, around eleven, Tom crept into the room, stripped off to his jocks and, still covered in a film of grain dust, fell into bed beside her. Too hot for sheets, he lay there and looked at the whirring fan in the darkness, glanced at the baby snoring softly in his cot, and patted Stella gently on her hot, clammy thigh.
‘Sorry, honey. Sorry.’ Within minutes, he too was asleep.
Stella sat up suddenly in surprise.
‘Tom?’ she said, a frown on her face, fear sliding into her voice. Outside the window was a bright orange glow. A fire? she wondered in shock. She slid her hand to Tom’s side of the bed, but the rumpled sheets were cool and he was not there. She looked to Ned, who was lying on his stomach, his little sumo-legs sprawled out, his arms cast wide, sound asleep. Stella ran from the bedroom and banged through the flyscreen door and came to a standstill on the verandah.
With a gasp, she felt a rush within her. There was no fire. There was no danger. What had woken her was the most beautiful, glowing ball of the biggest harvest moon she had ever seen in her life. It was full and red and round, burning and moving in a swirling, giant orange-golden orb. The moon was sitting low against the horizon and shone out across the dam as if it too was transfixed by its beautiful reflection there. At the heart of the dam, Stella noticed ripples on the surface. In the moonlight, she could see Tom swimming. His big, tanned farmer’s arms flinging over in the water, tumble-turning, floating on his back. Stella smiled at the sight.
She crept back inside the house. She opened up the cupboard, took out the box and reached in for the parcel.
A few minutes later, Tom bobbed to the surface. Across the shimmering
