Bella's Run (21 page)

It had been two weeks since they’d arrived home. With the Nunkeri Muster crossed off the Tindarra and Narree social calendars, all thoughts turned towards the Burrindal B&S Ball, and Bella had convinced her mother to come dress-shopping with her and Patty.

And thus the ‘Quest for the Dress’ had begun.

The day had started at six-thirty with a cuppa and a piece of toast. Patty had driven down from Tindarra the night before so they could be on the road to Bairnsdale in time to hit the shops by nine. It was only a fortnight until Christmas and the ball was planned for Saturday night. It was now Thursday, so the quest was skidding in sideways, a last-minute sprint to make them belles of the ball. Or, as far as the girls were concerned, at least to look a hell of a lot better than that dolled-up bitch Prudence Vincent-Prowse.

Bella wondered if Prowsy still had a bruise from the right hook she’d delivered at Nunkeri. She stared out through the ute passenger-side window, not really seeing the fog enclosing them in its grey grasp. She was back at the Muster looking down at Prowsy prostrate on the grass, clutching her bleeding mouth.

Bella shook away that disquieting memory, determined it wouldn’t wreck what had been a fabulous day shopping with her mum and best mate. She checked the side rear-vision mirror, and caught a glimpse of the bright pink dress bags poking out of the tool box in the back.
Burrindal B&S Ball, here we come!
She let out a whoop and threw a clenched fist into the air.

‘We are going to look like hot chicky babes in these numbers, Pat Me Tuffet. Those Marlboro mountain men of ours better watch out, because we’re comin’ to town.’ A chuckle came from Francine as she sat with eyes shut, listening to her girls.

The Dixie Chicks wound to a close and the CD spun to a stop.

‘What’ll we play now?’ Bella looked at the depleted bundle of CDs in her hand. ‘We’ve played them all twice. Why’d you leave your CD holder at home, Patty? What were you thinking?’

‘Of getting to your place before it got dark. I didn’t want to come up close and personal with a flaming kangaroo on that shitty road down the mountain.’

Francine lifted her head from where it had dropped to Bella’s shoulder. ‘Patty, honey, I think you should pop your lights on. That fog’s getting thicker out there.’ She went quiet for a minute. ‘What about the CD you bought for Beccy and Joel, Bella? Have you still got it in the ute, sweetheart? You didn’t give it to them in the end, did you?’

Bella leaned down to scrabble in the side pocket on the door. ‘Great idea, Mum. Nope. I didn’t give it to them. I should have got Hi-5 or the
Hannah Montana
soundtrack. They were a bit old for the CD I got. That’s just what we need after all this country music, a blast from the past with . . . nursery rhymes!’

Patty groaned. ‘Don’t do it to me.’

‘When you’re desperate, you’re really desperate,’ said Bella, coming up empty-handed. ‘You may be saved. I can’t find it. Have you got it over there, Patty?’

‘Yep, I’ve got it.’ Patty reluctantly dragged out the CD from the driver’s-side pocket. With her left hand she awkwardly tried to slide the disk into the player, jamming it on the way.

Francine opened her eyes and let out a gentle sigh. ‘Patty, my love, when will you learn to slow down?’

Patty was still scrabbling with the CD, pressing the eject button repeatedly with one hand, while the other guided the steering wheel. The CD popped out of the cavity with a clatter and bounced off the gearstick onto the floor.

Francine tried to reach it, leaning forward around the gearstick. ‘I can’t get it with my belt on.’

‘I’ll have a try,’ said Bella. ‘Damn, it’s gone under the seat.’ She clicked her seatbelt open so she could lean further down. ‘Nup, I can’t reach it either.’

‘I’ll have another go.’ Francine unclipped her belt and leaned over sideways to reach as far back as she could. ‘Got it!’ She came up triumphant, waving the silver disk. She slid the CD into the player.

‘She’ll be comin’ round the mountain when she comes,’ blasted through the speakers.

‘Yee ha!’ Bella leaned forward and cranked the volume to full blast.

They all joined in as Francine jiggled her knees around the gearstick in time to the beat. ‘Do you remember our singsongs around the piano at Maggie’s?’ she yelled to the two girls. ‘You all loved this one so much.’

As the chorus came round again, they sang with all their hearts. ‘Singing Hi Yi Yippy Yippy Yi, Singing Hi Yi Yippy Yippy Yi . . .’

Bella grabbed her mother’s hand and swung it in the air. At home they would have danced, spinning a partner around with glee.

Mid-song, Patty remembered Francine’s comment about her lights. She turned them on, along with the wipers. It was now drizzling rain. Sliding her foot from the accelerator, she slowed the ute.

‘What are you doing?’ yelled Bella.

‘The fog’s getting thicker. There’s an intersection with a give-way sign somewhere around here.’

They didn’t hear him coming.

A 30-tonne B-Double, loaded to the max with grain destined for Atkins Fertiliser and Stock Feeds.

Bluey Atkins’s right foot was touching the brakes to slow up for the intersection ahead; his left hand holding a mobile phone. His wife was on the blower wondering how far from home he was; there was a cow down with milk fever and she couldn’t get it up by herself.

A pair of lights suddenly appeared to the left of his startled gaze.

He barely felt the vehicle go under the huge bullbar. The steel Mack Dog guarding his bonnet. His wife was still talking on the phone he’d hurled to the floor as he threw every ounce of his ample weight into any brake he could find with his hands and feet.

Knowing it was too late.

Knowing there was no hope.

Knowing at that moment he was killing someone.

‘Bluey? Bluey? Are you there, Bluey?’ The phone continued to twitter.

Trying to control the brakes, Bluey struggled to arrest the weight of his rig and its huge bins of grain from bearing down on what was underneath.

A red Holden ute.

A torrent of sound assaulted his ears; tearing metal, shattering glass, screeching tyres and, most shocking of all, terrified screams. For Bluey, everything seemed to occur in slow motion, as if he were hovering above, observing.

The massive rig out of control. Brakes locked. Leaving the road.

Punching through the wire fence like scissors through thin jute twine.

A paddock of lush green lucerne laden with water droplets, shining in the misty rain.

The 180-degree slide across the paddock of ‘Montmorency Downs’; a slide, a sweep, taking only seconds to change lives.

A fire engine red ute attached to the bullbar of his truck.

Floating into his line of sight, a pair of eyes. Frozen with pure terror. Perfectly round. Lapis blue. Staring straight up and into his.

A soul in flight to death?

An angel on the way to heaven?

Images to haunt him for the rest of his life.

Bella’s world exploded.

A stream of noise assailed her ears: the shrieking of crumpling metal, the shattering of imploding glass. The high-pitched screech of air brakes competed with human screams. Cassettes, CDs, boots, pliers and rolls of insulation tape became missiles inside the ute’s crumpling cab.

Strapped to her driver’s seat, Patty was the first to absorb the incredible force of being T boned.

Francine’s unrestrained body flew forwards and out the front windscreen. Through the shower of glass Bella instinctively flung her hands towards her mother, fluking a hold on her ankle as she ploughed through the shattering window casing and out onto the bonnet.

At the same time, Bella’s passenger-side door flew open.

Her mother’s body thumped its way across the shiny, rain-slicked bonnet as the truck did its circular waltz across the paddock. Bella clung to the ankle that was keeping her in the cab of the ute. Her terrified and panic-stricken gaze swept across the devastation around her. Her eyes met those of a man fighting a duel with his truck.

Bella felt her mother’s ankle slowly slip from her grasp. She let loose with a blood-curdling scream. Without the shackle of a human anchor, Francine flew through the air, clearing the fence and landing with a thud on the tar.

Simultaneously Bella’s unrestrained body was snatched from the seat and flung out of the open passenger doorway, across the wide spaces she loved so much, rolling through a scrubby bush and somersaulting to a stop beside the road, tangled in the barbed wire that lay broken by the truck’s wild ride.

It only took seconds, but it seemed like hours.

Finally both the rig and the remains of the ute ground to a halt.

The sobbing of a man and a twittering mobile phone were all that disturbed the moist, early-evening air.

Then they too were silent.

PART TWO

Eight years later

Chapter 21

Melbourne was a bright glow in the rear-vision mirror of the Mercedes.

When Bella first arrived in the city, the place had screamed bedlam to her country ears; cars, trucks, sirens and people, all fighting for attention. She’d nearly gone nuts trying to dodge the pace and aggression; had slogged it out day after day, until she realised with shock that the chaos had become normal. It was as if landscapes filled with space, trees, mountains and silence had never been a part of her life. They were conveniently locked in the dark recesses of her mind.

Until now.

Bella wove the Mercedes around a speeding semi-trailer also heading east. Her dress, a scrap of magenta silk, was rucked up around her thighs where faint scars tracked patterns on her skin. Moonbeams danced in through the back window of the car, the light frequently glancing off the large diamond solitaire ring encircling the third finger on her left hand. Pavarotti played softly through the surround-sound system. Everything around her reeked of the sleek and expensive.

Bella slammed her hand down hard on the leather steering wheel. The moonbeams seemed to pause, expectant. ‘Damn him!’ she yelled at the top of her voice. ‘Fuck him!’ The moonbeams barely wavered. Everything around her stayed the same.

Who was she? What was she?

An urbane woman in control of her life? Hardly.

A country girl playing a game of charades? Possibly.

If this was a game, she didn’t want to play anymore, especially after tonight. Thank God she was out of there, away from Melbourne, away from Warren, her fiancé.
Fiancé
. The word rolled around her tongue. Funny how something that once tasted like honey, delightful and sweet, could turn into a mouthful of grit. How could things go so wrong?