Bella's Run (27 page)

But Maggie swiped the mirror real quick, so he had another clear view at what was in front of his eyes. Grimy dreadlocks were all that remained of his tousled russet hair; his eyes were sunken holes of misery buried so deeply into his skull even he couldn’t see if they were brown or black. His cheeks were sunk into the lines on his face, before being covered by a mangy beard that staggered drunkenly across his jaw. It was the face of a stranger, someone he wouldn’t want to know.

‘I don’t know how long you plan to let this nonsense go on,’ said Maggie, wagging an accusing finger in his face. ‘But I’m not having it. Not anymore. One niece has died, the other’s moved to the bloody city, so I’m not losing you too! When are you going to wake up and see that it’s not your fault. You didn’t kill Patty, for Christ’s sake! It was an accident. Stop blaming yourself!’

‘I don’t blame myself.’

‘Yes you do!’

‘I don’t!’

‘You do! God knows why, but you do!’

Will sat for a minute and thought about that. Maggie probably had a point – as usual. ‘Okay, maybe I do,’ he said and then he let it rip, the thing that had been hammering around his skull since he’d seen what was left of his sister in the morgue.

‘You didn’t see her, Maggie. Oh, they’d tried to fix her up, and you couldn’t see too much – but she was icy cold, and they’d put a fucking carnation on her lapel. Patty. A fucking carnation. It should have been a can of rum-and-coke.’

Will flung himself forward in agitation and curled his hands around the edge of the table, fingertips and knuckles white with tension. ‘I walk around all day in a daze, and working is the only thing that keeps me going. If I don’t bugger myself out I can’t sleep, and when I do sleep all I can see is her.’

The last image of his sister lying dead in that rosewood coffin would remain with him forever.

‘Hell, Maggie, I should have been there to protect her, look after her. It was my job since she was born, for fuck’s sake!’

Maggie stood beside him, wringing the half-apron she wore between her hands, frowning at her wild-looking nephew. Pulling out the chair next to him, she sat down with a thump. ‘Will, my darling boy, you couldn’t have saved her. You know that. Stop flogging yourself with something you had no control over. She was a big girl, and you couldn’t have done a thing.’ Maggie tried to pat his hand.

But he was having none of it.

‘Yes, I could’ve. I should have driven them; I should have taken them to bloody town. She asked me to, you know. Knew I had stuff to do. But I said no. “What man wants to be around a bunch of women shopping for dresses?” says me. And now she’s dead. Gone. Forever. I should have been there that day, Maggie.’

‘But, Will – we all make choices. On any other day the choice you made to stay behind would have been a good one. A cranky bloke tapping his toes waiting would’ve really taken the shine off their day. And they’d had a fantastic day, Frank told me. Francine rang him at lunchtime, bubbling with happiness – a fun day in town with
her
girls, she’d said.’ Maggie stopped, and Will could feel her eyes boring into his head, willing him to face her. ‘It was an accident, for heaven’s sake. You couldn’t be everywhere, and goodness knows that girl, much and all as I adored her, she wasn’t a saint. It’s a wonder with all her shenanigans she hadn’t already done herself some damage.
She
was driving that vehicle, not you. It was Patty who didn’t see that give-way sign. It was completely beyond your control!’

Will let go of the table and grabbed his coffee mug instead. Gulping at the thick black liquid he stared at his aunt’s brown-spotted hands as she drummed her fingers on the table. He took a few deep breaths and tried to regain some control. Maggie always did this to him. She always got him with the truth. So much wisdom, so much compassion and strength.

Silence reigned in that cosy country kitchen, red-and-white gingham curtains fluttering in the afternoon breeze above the sink. Will listened to the regular tick of the old Ansonia clock sitting on the mantle above the slow-combustion stove. He could see a crow sitting in the crab-apple tree outside the kitchen window, black beady eyes with a dead gaze on someone or something. A dead gaze he could relate to these past ten months, a black hole inside his skull.

‘And what about Bella?’ Maggie asked, breaking into his thoughts.

Will turned back to her. ‘What about Bella?’

‘I thought you two had something going together.’

‘We do. Well, we did . . .’

‘And so you’ve let her go too, haven’t you? You’ve turned your back on that poor girl so you could wallow around in your own self-pity.’

‘Self-pity? Self-
pity
? Jeez, Aunty Maggie, I lost my
sister
, for God’s sake. She
fucking well died
! AND I SHOULD HAVE BEEN THERE FOR HER!’ Will was shocked to hear himself shouting. He flung himself from his chair, spilling his coffee as he went. To his surprise, he began to shake, sobs welling deep from within his throat. He sank down, his back against the kitchen wall. Grief spilled like vomit from his mouth and wracked his shoulders into a rounded ball. Water leaked from his eyes and he realised he was crying for the first time since he’d heard his sister was dead.

He wasn’t aware that Maggie had moved quietly from her chair to sink down on her knees in front of him. The first he knew was when she laid her soft but firm hands upon his matted hair and gave him absolution just by sitting and letting the grief and loss finally have its head.

It had taken some time before he was able to face the world again, before he was up to venturing beyond the Tindarra Valley’s eucalypt walls. He spent time with Maggie, a lot of time in fact, just talking through the grief. She helped him shave his head and sent him home with hearty meals on a plate. And then after many long chats, some of which included old Wes, who always had some new piece of advice to dredge from his bushman’s well, he was finally ready to get back on with life. And one morning he decided, he needed to see Bella. To beg for her forgiveness, and to explain why she should give him a second chance.

But he fucked that up too, and he came home from Melbourne alone. Maggie took one look at his face and didn’t ask why. He never went back to Melbourne. Bella obviously hated him for how he’d treated her. And he couldn’t blame her. He hated himself.

A year later he did the second most stupid thing he’d done in his life: he married Prudence Vincent-Prowse.

Will watched as the Mercedes disappeared within a cloud of dust, before he stirred himself to move. Slightly favouring right leg over left, he slowly loped towards the sixteen-hand ebony horse tethered to a tree sapling nearby. Swishing its tail against the clouds of tiny black bush flies hovering over its rounded rump, Wizard patiently shifted his weight from one hoof to the next.

Will unbuckled the reins from the piece of baling twine he’d tied to the small tree, and then undid the knot connecting the twine to the sapling. Wizard had a habit of pulling back; better to break the twine than the leather reins. Stowing the piece of light twine in his jeans pocket, he walked his big horse around a bit. Stopping, he clinched up the loosened girth on his stock saddle a few notches, before finally swinging his long body over and into the seat. Glancing lingeringly once more towards the direction the black Merc had taken, he neck-reined Wizard around and steadfastly headed the opposite way.

Chapter 25

‘I now pronounce you husband and wife. You may kiss your bride,’ said the celebrant, looking expectantly at the couple standing before him.

The day had dawned sunny with a promise of bright blue skies for the wedding of the year at the Ben Bullen Hills Station. Never had the area of Burrindal seen anything of this ilk. Trinity had spared no expense, figuring he was only going to do it once, so he wanted to do it well.

As Bella had rolled out from her bed inside the newly renovated Ben Bullen Hills Station house, she knew from the brilliance of the day that God was on this young couple’s side. Out to the north, row after row of dusty blue mountains with eucalypts snugged to their sides rolled into one another as far as the eye could see. Mountains descended into the depths of a valley where the mighty Cullen River flowed.

As she sat on her horse in the natural grassy amphitheatre where the wedding was taking place, Bella wondered how anyone could not believe in God – the magnificent visage of nature taking the place of an altar in this outdoor church.

Everyone had gathered in a sloped opening on the side of a hill, where Trinity had rough-sawn stringy-bark logs and placed them in half-circle rows for guests to sit on. Thick bush slid down both sides of the open space and everyone faced out towards the distant rolling mountains as they witnessed this true bush wedding.

Bella looked down at her close friend’s face. Caroline’s eyes shone as brightly as the afternoon sun as she gazed up at her ruggedly handsome new husband. Francine would’ve loved to have seen this wedding; loved to have seen Caroline looking so happy and beautiful in her layers of pearl chiffon.

The strapless design of Bella’s raspberry-pink bustier allowed the slight breeze blowing up the mountain to tickle her neck. As the sun beat down she was sure it was the only thing keeping her from toppling in a faint from her perch atop her mare, Aprillia.

That and the burning eyes boring into her side belonging to William O’Hara who sat mounted on his own horse only metres away. She still couldn’t believe she was so attuned to
that
man. She silently recited the name of her fiancé: Warren. Warren, Warren, Warren!

Will cut a dashing figure on his ebony horse. His black suit was topped with a new black Bronco broad-brimmed hat, to match that worn by the groom.

He and Bella had spoken for the first time that morning, down at the stockyards while she was feeding and watering Aprillia. He was mucking around with his own horse.

‘Morning, Will,’ she called, trying to keep her voice level.

‘Isabella. Didn’t think we’d ever see you around these parts again.’

‘Well, you were wrong. Here I am!’ her voice squeaked. Shit.

‘Obviously,’ said Will. An uncomfortable silence followed. ‘I heard you were engaged to some city bloke. He coming?’

Bella opened her mouth to reply, and then stopped. She was shocked to realise that she hoped Warren
wouldn’t
make it to the wedding. ‘Not sure. He’s very busy.’ She ducked under Aprillia’s neck and took hold of the water bucket; as she walked towards the tap she realised Will was doing the same.

‘Nice horse,’ said Bella, throwing a hand out to pat the gelding.

‘Yeah. Wizard’s a good fella. Had him since he was a baby.’ Bella watched as Will gently fondled the horse’s mane, his tanned fingers moving in a caress across smooth black hair. Wizard blew softly into his master’s shoulder. Obviously a match made in heaven.

Bella’s mobile erupted into a sharp ring. She snatched it from her pocket, turning her back on Will.

‘Bella! Where are you? I’ve been trying to get hold of you for two days! Why has your phone been switched off?’

She’d been deliberately turning him off on the mobile. She was so flaming angry with him. Still. ‘Warren, when I’ve got something to say I’ll talk to you – and not before.’ Bella pressed the off button and stuck the phone back into her pocket.

‘You got trouble?’ A deep voice rumbled near her other ear.

She jumped and landed a little away to the right, tripping on a burgan shrub as she went. She came crashing down, all limbs and angles, her body buried among the prickly fronds of scrubby bush.

Will looked down at her, a bemused expression on his face. ‘Well, at least you’re still jumpy. That’s a start.’

‘I’m not jumpy!’ Bella tried to fight her way out of the bush, her bare arms flailing in the air.

Will grabbed hold of both arms in an iron grip and yanked her out of the shrub, causing her to overbalance again and fall towards his warm, hard chest. They both went perfectly still. The early-morning bush activity seemed to halt, the world seemed to pause.

Inhaling, she breathed in the warmth of flannelette, Pears soap, Lynx Africa deodorant, wood smoke and the earthy scent of horse and eucalyptus. She could feel the strength of Will’s hands as they came up to steady her. His touch incited her body into a rush of heat so strong she wasn’t exactly sure where she was being held.