Holding Out for a Hero (24 page)

“You’ll just pick the four of cups,” Iris dismissed. “You always pick the four of cups.”

Daisy was not to be deterred. Even if Iris was right, Daisy knew that nothing soothed her sister like connecting with her beloved cards. “Maybe I’ll surprise you?”

Iris sighed, shuffled the deck and spread them in a line for Daisy to choose one. Daisy went straight to the middle and flipped one over.

The four of cups.

She hooted. “Still got it.”

Iris looked at the card. It depicted a man sitting under a tree, who appeared to be mediating. He was being offered a cup but seemed oblivious to its presence. Daisy to a T: self-absorbed, wrapped up in her own world; totally uninterested in the goings on outside her front gate; unashamedly parochial, not in a mean or miserly way, just family-centric. She knew what was important, what mattered most.

“Didn’t help, huh?”

Iris shook her head, her gaze lifting from the card back to the garden, desperately looking for answers from the universe. Cerberus digging caught her eye again. His body was butted up against the sturdy trunk and his exertions reverberated through the wood, shaking the fading blossoms free from the lower branches. They fell on him like confetti. It was hard to believe that only two weeks ago they’d been fluffy yellow pompoms like a new-born chick and now they were darker, like little golden nuggets.

“Stop that, Cerberus!” Daisy called, because she knew how crazy it drove Iris and her sister was anxious enough.

Iris watched as the image seemed to freeze before her eyes. She looked down at the four of cups, the meditating man morphing into the backyard scene, the tree with yellow gold blossoms taking pride of place.

Her heart beat a little faster.

She stood. “The wattle.”

Daisy stopped mid-match strike, a cigarette drooping from her bottom lip. Goose bumps pricked at her inked arms. Iris had that woo-woo look about her and Daisy had learned a long time ago not to mess with the woo-woo look. She removed the cigarette. “What about the wattle?”

“Yellow gold,” Iris said, her gaze firmly fixed on the blossoms as she moved around the table, heading for the back stairs.

Daisy followed as her twin practically levitated to the tree in question. Cerberus backed up slightly and hung his head, not sure if they’d come to scold him.

“What now?” Daisy asked as they both stared at the tree.

“I don’t know,” Iris said. “I think we have to dig.”

Daisy didn’t blink an eyelid. “Right, I’ll get the shovels. I told you we’d need ’em one day,” she said cheerily as she headed toward the shed. “As you were, Cerberus.”

*

Half an hour later, Ella and Jake, just back from Huntley, found two old women with shovels and one ecstatic dog making limited progress into the compacted earth around the base of the middle wattle tree.

“I don’t suppose you’re digging a shallow grave for our friend John Wells?” Ella asked as they approached.

“No dear, yellow gold,” Iris said, as if it explained everything, not bothering to look up from her ministrations.

Jake raised an eyebrow at Ella and she shot him a don’t-ask-me look. “Here,” he said, stepping forward, unable to watch women in their sixties torture their spinal columns with such back breaking activity. “Let me do it.”

Iris surrendered her shovel and stepped back. Daisy also fell back, leaning on hers. Cerberus kept going, barking occasionally as if in encouragement.

“How was it?” Daisy asked.

Ella heard the familiar gruff note in her voice and smiled at the tough old dame with a marshmallow center. “Good.” She nodded. “I’m pleased we went.”

Ten minutes later, Jake had doubled the depth. He stood and stretched his back, wiping at the sweat on his forehead. “How deep do you want me to go?” he asked.

“You can stop when you get to China,” Daisy said, then laughed at her own joke.

The other dogs, who’d had shown only cursory interest in the activity in the backyard, started to bark, and Ella turned around to see Rosie and Simon on the verandah.

“Did we accidentally murder someone?” Rosie asked as she and Simon approached.

Ella laughed. “Yellow gold,” she said.

“Oh. I see,” Rosie said as Simon took Daisy’s shovel and joined Jake. “I think.”

Another twenty minutes of digging into the hard earth and significantly deepening and widening the hole hadn’t yielded anything. Jake, shoulder deep in the earth, looked up at Iris, sweat pouring off him. “You sure there’s something here?”

Iris nodded, absolutely certain for the first time all year. “Our salvation.”

Jake glanced at Simon, who shrugged back at him. How could they argue with salvation? “Okay then.”

He drove the shovel into earth that still felt like a block of concrete. A loud tink echoed up the hole as he hit something metallic. Iris gasped and reached for Daisy’s hand. Rosie put her arm around Ella’s shoulder as they all peered over the edge down into the hole. Cerberus, who had been removed from the hole due to lack of room, barked excitedly. In a few minutes Jake had unearthed a plain metal box, not much bigger than a regulation lunch box but reasonably weighty. He handed it up to Iris.

Iris held the box reverently, absently brushing the dirt away. The metal that had felt cold in her palms a moment ago now felt incredibly warm. The energy flowing from it was off the scale.

“Well?” Daisy demanded as Jake and Simon scrambled out of the hole. “Aren’t you going to open it?”

Iris nodded. “At the table.”

Everyone hurried to the verandah. No one dared to speak as they sat and watched Iris place the box in front of her. Cerberus whined at her side and she gave him a pat as she sat. “Good boy, Cerberus. Good dog.” He wiggled happily.

“What do you suppose is in there?” Rosie asked.

“It’s Annie’s stuff,” Iris said, her hand resting on the lid. The realisation had come to her slowly as the hole had deepened. She didn’t doubt it; she knew it the way she always knew things.

Then she opened the box and pulled out a couple of small drawstring sacks still remarkably intact. Iris placed them on the table and looked at them for a moment or two.

“You open them,” she said to Daisy.

Daisy didn’t need to be asked twice. She widened the opening on one bag and emptied the contents onto the table top. An assortment of jewelry slipped out, brooches, rings, necklaces—diamonds, rubies, pearls.

Rosie gasped. “Are they—do you think they’re real?”

Simon nodded. “I’d say this is Shamus’s loot. I reckon they’re the real deal.”

Daisy quickly emptied the contents of the other, much heavier, sack. Coins tumbled out, followed by a bundle of old paper currency rolled up and held tight by a piece of string and several dirty-looking irregular-shaped rocks ranging in size from a pea to a marble.

Simon picked one up and inspected it. “I think these are nuggets. Gold nuggets.”

Nobody said a word for the longest time as they sat looking at Annie’s loot. Or, as Iris had put it, their salvation.

Then Daisy reached for a cigarette. “Looks like we can pay for those repairs now,” she said as she lit it.

You could have heard a pin drop in the dying seconds of the BSFC grand final as the Demons kicked to convert their score-evening try in the last two minutes. It was a difficult kick, at a crazy angle in the hands of Ned, a skinny, hormonal sixteen-year-old, whose knees could be heard knocking in the next state.

Ella couldn’t look—she buried her face in Rosie’s shoulder. At the moment just pulling air in and out of her lungs and keeping her stomach contents where they belonged was difficult enough. She didn’t have to look at Jake to know how tense he was, his statue-like presence just a few feet from her, radiating an edgy anticipation.

Ella peeked. Ned peered at the middle bar of the goal post and then back at the ball. He repeated the process several times, mentally lining up his kick. Ella pressed her face back again as Ned took his first step toward the ball. Rosie’s hand tightened on hers and Ella swore she heard the sound of a collective gasp from the entire Hanniford stand as the sound of a boot hitting leather echoed across the field.

“What’s happening?” Ella whispered urgently.

“It’s up in the air,” Rosie commentated. “It’s arcing back down … it’s looking pretty good, it’s looking … very good. Oh my God! It’s dead center.”

And then the entire crowd roared and Ella was yanked to her feet by Rosie and she turned to see Jake and Pete running on to the field toward the huddle of Demons, who had lifted skinny Ned into the air and were throwing him up and down like a crowd surfer in a mosh pit.

Rosie was hugging her, Simon was hugging her, some Demons’ supporters who were standing behind her were hugging her. It was an orgy of embraces and cheers and excited jumping up and down.

Then the Demons’ supporters and the cheer squad were running onto the field and Rosie was pulling her along as well. She stumbled, laughing and accepting congratulations from blurry people as they charged past her to get to the team.

The full extent of what they’d achieved hit her as she stood among the chaos. Hanniford High School, the down-and-out, inner-suburban, hard-luck school,
her school
, had won the BSFC in their inaugural year. They’d done it. She’d done it. She’d notched up the first step in saving her school from the education department axe.

And in the process, the school community had united as she’d never imagined possible. It was as if Hanniford had gone into a chrysalis all broken and defeated and emerged a thing of beauty, cohesive and unified. The students had pride, she could see it in the way they walked and the way they met her eyes. Even the teachers, jaded from years of disillusionment, had a spring in their step and a vigor in their lessons.

They’d done it. They’d really done it. Suddenly she was shaking all over. The crowd pushed and jostled around her but Ella didn’t even register it. She searched for Jake in the sea of well-wishers. He was probably only a few meters away—she could see his buzz-cut a head higher than most of the crowd—but he may as well have been on the moon; the mass of people between them was too impenetrable and she was suddenly utterly exhausted.

She turned away from the crowd and made her way back to the empty stand, taking a seat. She smiled at the excited mob still hogging the middle of the field. She watched Jake sign an autograph. He chose that moment to look up and she grinned at him. Damn it! Even half a field away she wanted to tear his clothes off and do him. He gave her a little shrug and waggled his fingers at her. She blew him a kiss. Their celebration could wait. They had all night. Hell, they had all their lives.

It was nice not to have to worry, to just sit and know for the first time in two years that her job was safe, her school was safe. Combine that with their home also being safe and Ella felt so carefree it was as if she’d been filled with helium.

She had an overwhelming urge to lie down on the wooden seat and shut her eyes. The last couple of weeks had been exhausting. Between the media interest, the intense training schedule and her hot sweaty nights with Jake, there hadn’t been a lot of sleeping going on. But Ella wouldn’t have traded them for anything.

She couldn’t say she was the same person now as she had been before the furor but maybe it’d been time to change anyway. Her trip to Huntley had helped. Enrolling Cam and her in counseling—despite his protests—had helped even more so. Jake was right—her anger had been holding her back. Taking steps toward letting it go had been incredibly cathartic. They still had a long road ahead but at last Ella felt as if they were finally on the right track.

It seemed like an age before the crowd let Jake out of its clutches and he didn’t waste any time bounding toward her. Her heart beat a crazy little tap-dance as his powerful thighs ate up the distance between them, taking the steps two at a time. He stopped in front of her, placing one foot on the step beside her and gave her a lazy smile as her gaze slowly crawled from his groin to his face.

“I know what you’re thinking.”

“Really? It’s kind of shocking.” She grinned.

Jake swallowed at the thought. “Isn’t it improper or illegal or something for the principal to be talking dirty to the coach within school grounds? With so many minors around?”

“Not on grand final day.”

Jake laughed as he sat beside her and put his arm around her shoulders, looking at the Demons still lapping up praise in the middle of the oval. “You did it. Today the BSFC, tomorrow the Schools Cup.”

Ella beamed at him. “
We
did it.”

Jake shook his head. “No way. This was all you. I had to be coerced, remember?”

Ella’s smile slipped. “I know.” She lifted her hand and trailed her fingers along his jaw. “Thank you for changing your mind.”

Jake grinned as he bent his head to nuzzle her neck. “It’s been my pleasure.”

“Hey Jake, unhand that woman,” Trish hollered. Jake and Ella looked up at her. “They’re presenting the trophy. Get your asses down here.”

Jake glanced at Ella. “Later,” he murmured and then stood and held out his hand.

*

Monday was a joy to behold for Ella. A steady flow of phone calls in the morning for enrollments for the following year not only put them into the safe zone but looked like it would also garner Hanniford a deputy principal as well as several extra teachers.

An official from Junior Rugby League Australia rang to talk about funding to base a rugby league school of excellence at Hanniford. Six months ago, Ella would rather have burnt the school to the ground, but today she felt a little trill of excitement as the possibilities blossomed in her head.

And, sweetest of all, Donald Wiseman rang to rather stiffly congratulate her and inform her that with all the new enrollments, the education review panel no longer had Hanniford on its closure list.

It really was a bloody marvelous day.

That night they all gathered around Daisy and Iris’s table to celebrate their achievements. The aroma of saw dust hung like a blanket of humidity in the air—thick and heavy—and tickled Ella’s throat.

After going through all the proper channels, the sale of Annie’s loot, arranged by Simon to a private collector, had netted them enough money to clear the mortgage, with plenty left over for renovations, and the heritage contractors had started a few days ago. The renovations were going to take six months but nobody cared. They could live in a construction zone for as long as it took to get Annie’s old bordello shipshape.

The household of five had grown to seven now that Jake and Simon had taken up permanent residence with their women. Miranda and Pete, who always seemed to be around as they were tonight, had joined them for dinner. The four-legged residents all lolled on the ground by their feet, except for Cerberus, who was up next to Simon, scoring food.

Dinner—Rosie’s curry, of course—accompanied by the low hum of Ella Fitzgerald magic tinkling in the background, was a raucous affair, competing with the lorikeets in the noise department. Watching the proceedings Ella realized she loved Daisy and Iris more tonight than she ever had. She and Rosie had essentially invaded their perfect, spinster-like existence twenty years ago and they hadn’t once complained.

“What?” Daisy asked through squinty eyes as she dragged on a rollie, her shrewd gaze resting on Ella.

Ella smiled at the cantankerous old woman. “Nothing.”

“Nothing my ass,” she chortled. “What was that look about?”

Ella sighed. “I was just thinking how marvelous you and Iris are. You took us in and became our family. You gave us a life.”

“Nonsense,” Daisy dismissed. “Our lives hadn’t begun until you girls came along. You are our life.”

Ella’s vision misted over at the gruffness in the older woman’s voice. She felt Jake’s hand give her thigh a squeeze. Daisy wasn’t big on personal statements so she took that as a major concession.

“Ah, I think we’re going to go and watch some TV,” Cam interrupted.

“Not too late,” Jake warned. “Early to bed for the next week. Miranda, I’m taking you home in an hour.”

“Yes, coach,” they chorused as they departed, rolling their eyes in the way of teenagers the world over.

The adults watched them go. “They’re good together,” Iris murmured. Nobody disagreed.

As dinner continued, conversation turned to their grand-final win. “I’d just like to point out,” Simon said, “this whole thing was my idea.”

“So it was,” Ella agreed.

Rosie slung her arm around his shoulders. “He’s brilliant, isn’t he?”

“Definitely,” Ella agreed. “And for that I give you permission to marry my best friend.”

“Ella, don’t take this the wrong way.” Simon smiled. “But I’m marrying this woman whether you permit it or not.”

Ella grinned at her friend. “I see your penchant for dominance is rubbing off?”

Rosie sighed. “What can I say, the man knows too much about democracy.”

The conversation soon turned to football and strategy for the Schools Cup, which was to be played against exclusive Chiswick College the following Saturday. Chiswick would be hosting the match and had won the cup eight out of the last ten years.

“I managed to get hold of a DVD of Chiswick’s last game.” Pete dropped the morsel into the conversation and everyone turned to stare at him.

Jake shook his head. “How on earth did you manage that? The street-urchin network again?”

Pete grinned. “Something like that.”

When Jake had first taken Pete under his wing, he’d been amazed at the kid’s ability to attain the unattainable, to source the unsourceable. Now nothing surprised him.

“Have you seen it?”

Pete nodded. “They’re good.”

“Well,” Daisy demanded. “Did you bring it with you?”

Pete winked at her. “Of course.”

“Well?” she demanded again.

Pete rose from the table, retrieved the disk from his bag and slotted it into the DVD player that sat on top of the television in the veranda’s very own entertainment unit. “This is their grand final match.”

He pressed play on the remote as all eyes fixed on the television. For forty minutes, only the odd scraping of plates could be heard above the muffled sounds of an amateur taping. But there were good close-ups of the action and Jake knew they’d scored gold.

“Well done, Pete,” he said as the half-time hooter went and the person taping the game obviously decided crowd shots and scenery would suffice until the game started again.

They used the break in play to analyse the tape. “There’s some great stuff on there,” Jake said. “We’ll go over it all in more detail tomorrow morning, Pete, and with the team in the afternoon.”

“They do look good,” Simon commented. “Really good.”

Jake nodded, they did. That was irrefutable. But the Demons had come from nowhere, with nothing, and won the BSFC trophy. Chiswick were champions. But so were Hanniford and they had something that Chiswick didn’t. They had something to prove.

Ella had been mesmerized by how skillful the play was. She may have been a novice but everything about Chiswick scared the bejesus about her. “They look like they play to win.”

“So do we,” Pete said.

Ella turned to Jake. She loved him. He’d turned her entire life upside down and somehow in the process managed to turn it right around. She wanted him to know that it was okay to be beaten by a far superior team. That winning this one didn’t matter. That they’d proved themselves.

“Jake. The Schools Cup doesn’t matter. Not anymore. Hanniford’s not under threat of closing. And the boys have nothing to prove. They came from nowhere to beat the best in Brisbane public schools. But these guys—” she shook her head, “they’re in a league of their own.”

“You hired me to win you the Schools Cup. And that’s what I’m going to do.”

Ella smiled, surprised that she loved his stupid male pride as much as the rest of him. “Okay, I’m just saying that no one’s going to think less of you, or the Demons, if they lose this match.”

Jake’s jaw tightened. “I’ll think less of me.”

Ella smiled despite his suddenly serious face. “I mean it, Jake. Chiswick College is the most exclusive boys’ educational facility in the state. They obviously have the best equipment and coaches money can buy.”

Jake shook his head. “You have the best coach money can buy.”

Ella glared. “You’re free, Jake.”

Jake grinned. “What can I say? The school principal drives a hard bargain.”

“What I’m trying to say,” she said with a tinge of exasperation, “is the boys have done their best and I don’t want them to get their hopes up too high. It’s alright to admit defeat, you know. Sometimes there’s even honor in it.”

A shout on the video drew everyone’s attention back to the television as the Chiswick College boys ran back on to the field. The person behind the camera said, “What do you think, coach?” and swung around for a close-up of a man wearing a shirt that said
Coach
.

The shot was blurry and came slowly into focus as the man said, “Those guys are a pack of limp dick, pansy-assed cry-babies. Call themselves an opposition? They play like a bunch of girls. They might as well have their cheerleaders play the game for them. At least we’d have a bit of tits and ass, a bit of girl-on-girl to look at. We’ve got this one in the bag.”