pub. Always the pub. If she could pick up the Fur Trapper Hotel and fling it off the mountainside, she would. How many times had that place kept her husband away for hours and her at home trapped with the babies and the blowflies? Guiltily she looked at Ben and Archie. They were such dear little boys. If only she had time to enjoy them. But everything seemed to be crammed in around running the house and the farm business. And running after Charlie’s apathy. This was the first day Bec could remember ever taking it slow with them.
Sensing Bec’s mood, Evie had ushered the boys to the largest fountain and had passed them twenty cents each to make a wish. Her kindness made Bec feel obligated to buy something, and this too made her feel a little flushed and annoyed. Charlie counted the pennies she spent.
She cast her eye over the colourful racks of clothing — perfect for Candy, but not at all for her. Come wintertime she knew the summer Indian cottons would be replaced by alpaca beanies and jumpers all looking as if they were made from yak fur. In her mind, she echoed Charlie’s sentiments: ‘Hippy shit.’ She felt rude thinking such thoughts. What if the old woman could read minds?
Instead she wandered to the book section. Her eyes, used to popular fiction and agricultural publications, grappled with the titles: The Anatomy of Peace, Practical Spirituality, A New Earth, The Children of Now, The Vortex.
‘Anything that catches your eye?’ the woman asked.
‘I really don’t have time to read.’
‘You have an iPhone. Perhaps a downloadable CD, then you could listen to it on that. I sell earphones too. Or you can listen when you drive. You must drive a lot.’
Bec was beginning to regret coming into the shop. This seemingly kind shopkeeper was actually a pushy saleswoman. She had to get out of here and back to the farm. She’d call in at the Dingo Trapper Hotel and drag Charlie out by the collar on the way. Surely she couldn’t be expected to feed the dogs and dish up tea, along with all the washing to get in off the line, all before the seminar? Especially after his secret trip to the Trapper the night before in the new Deere. If he got back on the booze today, he’d be rotten by tonight and wouldn’t take in anything Andrew had to say, let alone be ready to put in a full day’s work on Monday on the farm.
Just wanting to get out of the place, she grabbed up a CD titled The Law of Attraction by two rather normal-looking Yanks, Esther and Jerry Hicks. ‘I’ll take this one.’
‘Good choice. If you’re open to it and ready for it, this book could be the start of you creating a life beyond your wildest dreams. It comes with a booklet. It’s out the back. I’ll get it for you.’
Before Bec could say ‘don’t bother’, the woman was gone.
Frustrated now, she gazed out the shop window onto the quiet Bendoorin main street. Across the road the service station was adding on a takeaway shop and next to that the motel was receiving a facelift. Then at last the woman was back.
‘This book will show you that if you can master your own mind and always seek positive, appreciative thoughts, your whole world will open up to new ways for you. Money, health, relationships. It teaches you that you create your own reality, good and bad, through your thoughts,’ Evie said.
‘That’s nice. OK, well, thank you,’ Rebecca said, trying to usher the boys out the door.
‘Enjoy your journey — and remember, always follow your bliss!’ Evie called after them.
‘She was nice,’ said Archie as Bec strapped him into his booster seat.
‘Kookie more like,’ she said.
‘No, she wasn’t, Mum,’ Ben retorted. ‘You should think more good thoughts, like the lady said.’
As she shut the car door, Rebecca stood in the sweltering heat. Her son had a point. When she was younger, she had believed she could achieve anything, but the more life had moved on, the more and more she had been steered by others and life no longer lit a fire in her belly. How could she rekindle it? She looked down at the book and CD she had just bought. They said books landed in your lap for a reason, didn’t they? This one looked way out of her comfort zone. She flipped open to a page that told her that it might take some time to adjust to the notion that she was creating her life through her thoughts, not her actions.
‘Huh?’ she said out loud before reefing open her door and throwing the book on the front passenger seat with a huff. The CD slid from the back sleeve of the book and dropped to the floor.
‘Bugger it,’ Bec said and started the engine.
By the time they’d passed the Cranky Chicks sign, both boys were asleep. The shopping will be almost roasted, she thought. She should’ve left the groceries until last and she shouldn’t have spent thirty bucks on a book and audio she never wanted in the first place.
‘Get over yourself, Rebecca,’ she muttered crossly to herself. ‘Think good thoughts. Not bad ones.’
Maybe she could pass the CD and book onto her city sister-in-law, Trudy, so it wasn’t wasted. She glanced at it, taking in the swirling cover art of outer space. There was no way known that Trudy would like it. Maybe her mother, Frankie, would be interested. With all her veterinary science knowledge, she might find something in the pages. Didn’t all this New Age spiritual stuff have physics and other science at its heart? She was again distracted by her phone.
There were already two missed calls and two voice mail messages to retrieve and now a video call was coming in from Charlie.
Video call? she wondered, frowning. He’d never made one of those to her. She rolled her eyes again. He was probably trying out things on the new phone that he’d so proudly scored in the tractor deal. Being married to Charlie felt like she was mothering three boys, not two, most days!
She pulled over onto a roadside verge, the Cranky Chicks sign still in sight in her side mirrors. Her index finger pressed the answer button. ‘Hello,’ she said.
There was a rustling noise and Charlie’s breath, then the blurred and darkened image of what looked like the inside of his jeans pocket.
‘Hello? Charlie!’ she yelled at the phone. ‘I think you’ve accidentally called me. Charlie! Char … lie! Charlie?’ Behind her in the back seat, her boys stirred, but did not wake. She smiled at them. Shearing-shed babies, she thought. They would sleep through a hurricane. She looked back at the phone and called Charlie’s name again.
It sounded like he was walking up a hill, his breath coming fast. He must be out ploughing again, she thought irritably, and he’d be out checking the sods of earth, where she knew billions of soil micro-organisms would have been butchered.
She pressed the end button, not wanting to waste money. Not wanting to think of the Waters Meeting soil she knew they were buggering with bad farming practice. He’d been going off lately about the high phone bills. Never mind that he spent bucketloads on fertiliser that she hated and fuel to run the machinery that he brutalised the landscape with. She sighed, glad the no-till cropping and holistic grazing night was tonight and she could get a good dose of Andrew and his positivity. She so badly wanted Charlie to click with Andrew, so that things on Waters Meeting could begin to change.
She was about to pull the vehicle onto the road when a video call came in from Charlie again.
‘Hello!’ she said, this time crossly.
