Chapter Forty
Two new ebook short story collections from Rachael Treasure in 2013
‘You told me it was a Tupperware party!’
Rebecca Lewis folded her arms across her chest as best she could with two shaggy terriers sitting on her lap. She scowled at Gabs, who was swinging on the wheel of the Cruiser like an army commando. Gabs aimed cigarette smoke towards the Landy’s window and puffed out a cloud, then delivered a wide, wry smile from her unusually lip-glossed lips.
‘Get over it.’
The women were lumping their way over the wheel-scarred track, once a quagmire during a severely wet winter, but now a summer-baked road of deep jolting ruts. As they wound over shallow creek crossings and valley-side rises, Rebecca shifted under the weight of Gabs’s dogs and hunched her shoulders. She looked out at the dry bushland around them that ticked with insects in the evening heat.
‘I thought it would cheer you up,’ Gabs offered.
‘Cheer me up? Do I look like I need cheering up?’ Rebecca frowned at her own reflection in the dusty side mirror. There were deep worry lines on her forehead. Her blonde hair, dry and brittle on the ends, was carelessly caught up in a knot as if she was about to take a shower. Hair that looks as coarse as the terriers’ fur, she thought. Bags of puffy skin sat beneath her blue eyes like tiny pillows. She prodded them with her cracked fingertips. Her mouth was turned down at the corners.
Could she actually be a bitter old woman at thirty-eight? She closed her eyes and told herself to breathe.
‘How can you not be cheered up by that?’ asked Gabs, thrusting an invitation at her. Bec looked down to the silhouette of a woman naked save for her towering stilettos. The woman sported a tail and tiny horns like a weaner lamb. Horny Little Devils, the text read. Making the World a Hornier Place. Australia’s Number One Party Plan.
‘Tupperware party, my arse,’ Rebecca said, rolling her eyes. The tiniest smirk found its way to her lips. She looked ahead on the road to Doreen and Dennis’s farmhouse, tucked into the next valley. Maybe this party could be a turning point for me and Charlie, she thought hopefully. Ten years of marriage, two baby boys, the death of her father and a farm that failed to function. Charlie blaming the weather; Rebecca knowing different. Then there was her family, distant in the city. Her mother, Frankie, who seemed to not notice her, and big brother Mick, still treating her as if she was ten. And always, always, there was the memory of Tom. She sighed and pushed Amber and Muppet off her lap onto the floor and grabbed for Gabs’s cigarettes.
Gabs glanced over with concern as Bec fumbled with the slim rolls of tobacco. Hands shaking, she put the smoke to her lips and swore as her thumb ineffectively ran over the coarse metal cog of the lighter, creating feeble sparks but no flame. She hadn’t felt this down for years. Not since the years soon after her brother Tom’s death.
‘Oh, for god’s sake!’ she said, throwing the lighter on the dash and stuffing the cigarette back in the packet.
‘Are you right? Since when did you take up smoking?’
Bec shrugged.
‘Here,’ said Gabs, passing her a bottle of Bundy, ‘forget the ciggies, forget the Coke. Just cut to the chase.’
‘But we’ve got crutching and jetting tomorrow. And I’ve got to get the boys to the Saturday bush-nurse clinic. It’s Dental Day,’ she said, still taking the square bottle of rum from Gabs.
‘Dental Day! Again? Thank god Ted doesn’t have teeth yet and Kylie had hers checked last month when we were in the city. C’mon, ya bloody sook! Listen to you!’ Gabs made whining noises — a parody of the complaints that Rebecca repeatedly made, about Charlie, about the farm, about the weather.
‘For god’s sake, Bec, go have your period and jump in a shark tank! You need to make the best of your lot so suck it up, princess.’
Rebecca looked out through the heat-wilted wattles towards a stand of white-trunked gums and cracked the yellow top off the bottle. From where she sat, Amber sniffed at the rum and wagged her feathery terrier tail.
‘None for you,’ Rebecca said gently. She swigged deeply and grimaced at the rawness of the alcohol on the back of her throat.
Gabs looked across at her, softening now. ‘I know it’s been tough, with the mixed-up seasons and … you know … but build a bridge! You’ll have fun tonight. And I didn’t suck my tits dry with a pump for Ted’s bottle just for you to pike out on me.’
Her friend’s tone was humorous, but Bec wished it was harsh. She wanted a kick up the arse. She was used to harshness. She thought of Charlie again and the sight of his broad back as he’d slammed the door of the kitchen that afternoon, taking his fury with him into the yellow-and-green cab of the dual-wheel John Deere. She pictured him going round and round now in the dying light of the hot day, the big wheels crushing a track through the dust of the paddock. A paddock she’d begged him not to plough.
Once Rebecca had liked tractors, loved them in fact. And had loved Charlie within them. During the early summers of their marriage at Waters Meeting, she remembered the sweet smell of freshly baled hay. The big roundies bouncing out the back of the New Holland and rolling to a stop on the green meadows. The way the cab door would open and Charlie would appear like a Bullrush-clothing-catalogue, sun-kissed god. His boots landing solidly on the steps of the cab, socks covered by canvas gaiters, the golden hair on his tanned legs covered in a fine film of dust. His teeth glistening white in the sun as he smiled, stooping to kiss her. She
