The Outback Heart (5 page)

INDI
drove the big yellow loader through the gap in the bin doors, tipping her four-tonne bucket and emptying the load of wheat into the deep grid. The wheat then went up elevators, across conveyor belts and into the four massive overhead cells over by the railway line. Later tonight she’d be up there, pressing the lever that would let the grain down the shoot and into the train wagons. She liked being up so high, where she could see out over Hyden and all the surrounding land. A little community bordered by paddocks and native bush. Her town. She almost felt like the lord mayor standing up that high and watching over it. Protecting it.

People she’d known her whole life were up and moving to the city, and it saddened her to watch the place shrink and struggle. The decline of the footy club hurt the most. The tourism was great but tourists didn’t make a close-knit community. They couldn’t bring back the social aspect that the town was once known for – but Indi could. She had grand plans to restore the social events and the fundraisers, to revive a time when the whole town turned out for game day and stayed until late, when young and old shared stories. The world was obsessed with social networking, but it was of the wrong kind. You can’t connect with people over electrical devices – working side-by-side and building up a real relationship, a real friendship, that’s how it’s done. Her mum always said that too many people wanted to know what was happening on the other side of the world instead of focusing on what was going on right beside them. More and more people couldn’t be bothered to step outside their homes and get to know their neighbours. Instead they’d sit on the internet or watch TV. And so the spirit of Hyden was fading.

‘Real life is right outside your front door,’ Lizzy would always say, and in those final months Indi realised just how right her mum was. Lizzy made time for people, and they adored her for it. She had such passion for life and for the town. Indi just hoped she had the strength to carry on the tradition.

Stopping the loader at the grid, Indi realised she was almost done. A few more loads should do it. She clicked the loader into reverse and backed into the bin with practised ease, then spun around and headed back to the massive stack of wheat. She’d been at this repetitive task for the past eight hours, but she loved working with machinery. It came from growing up with a dad who had trucks, loaders and utes for work. This was a job she enjoyed doing, where she only had to worry about herself and not what the rest of the crew were doing. Hopefully they were still cleaning up the open bulkhead. On second thoughts they had probably knocked off and were just waiting for the train to arrive. She wasn’t looking forward to it: the train was due in at eight and it was already running late. But on the upside, if she got this last cell full, then she’d have time to duck down to footy training while she waited for the train to arrive.

After a few more loads, the red light stayed on and her job was done. She parked the loader inside the huge bin and quickly filled in the logbook. She climbed out and paused as she admired the inside of the huge bin. It was massive – large concrete walls and a high pointed tin roof. It could hold forty-six thousand tonnes of grain. Just below the point of the roof was a walkway and the large conveyor belt, which fed the grain into the bin at harvest time. Being up there wasn’t a job for the vertically challenged. Indi loved it, besides the dust. The grain, especially bullock barley and oats, spread its itch dust everywhere; it coated your lungs and the inside of your nose.

Working casually for Co-operative Bulk Handling had been the first paying job she’d found after coming back to Hyden when her mum was sick. Now, as a permanent, well, she actually enjoyed it and the pay was good, although the hours weren’t. Midnight trains were never fun, especially in the middle of winter.

Indi shut the massive white doors and locked the chain. Glancing at her watch again, she swore and jogged to her ute. She’d be late for training. Not that she had to be there, but it was good to show the boys she was dedicated. Hopefully it would rub off on them.

Okay, so maybe she also liked the excuse to see Troy. She couldn’t deny that. Indi hadn’t had a proper boyfriend since she’d left uni – well over three years ago. That was some dry spell. Indi didn’t want to think about it too much. She’d even heard of rumours around town that she was gay. But what could she do? The years had just rolled by so quickly. There was no one around town who interested her, she couldn’t be bothered with the tourist blow-ins, and she didn’t have the time to go looking elsewhere.

But Troy, well, he was a different story. All week she’d been plagued with memories of him commanding that room full of footy blokes.

Jumping into her ute, she checked her face in the rear-view mirror. Crap – her hair was a dusty mess. She got out, undid her ponytail and flicked her head forward, shaking her hair before whipping it back and retying her ponytail. That would have to do.

The lights were on at the oval. She could see them as she drove there. She parked her ute next to Jasper’s and headed to the lone handsome figure with the whistle. Now, she just needed to stay cool.

‘Hey, how’s it going? Any improvements?’ She tried to flash her best smile.

Troy turned briefly, as if to check it was her. ‘Well, Kiwi One, Lucky and Spud were heaving after the runs I got them to do, Brick almost knocked Limp out, and then Killer copped an elbow to the eye. And this was in the first ten minutes.’

‘Oh, great to see I haven’t missed much, then,’ she said.

Troy laughed but then fell silent. Indi tried to think of something to say, wanting to know a bit more about Troy, but not knowing how to approach it. ‘Sorry I was late. Bloody work,’ she said, waving a hand.

‘You don’t have to be here, Indi. I can cope on my own,’ he said.

Indi didn’t let the tone of his voice upset her. She had two brothers, after all. ‘I know, but I really want to be a part of the team. This club is my life, seriously. I wouldn’t have brought you here if I didn’t think it was worth saving,’ she said, with another smile. She’d been told that her smile was her best asset.

He crossed his arms and glanced at her, hardly moving his head.

‘Look, I’m not just some dumb chick who doesn’t know a thing about football. I used to pull on the yellow shorts and play myself in the reserve team, and I beat both my brothers in AFL Fantasy Dream Team last year. I’d love to be a coach but don’t think the guys would take me seriously. So helping you is the next best thing.’

Troy blew the whistle, which just about burst her eardrums.

‘Righto, you blokes – back in two lines, handballing back and forth,’ he said. He began to walk away and Indi’s shoulders slumped. She was about to sit down when Troy stopped and swung back around to her.

‘Okay, I’m not used to having people around and usually I do things on my own. But . . .’ he sighed, glancing away as if he almost couldn’t believe what he was going to say next, ‘I can see you’re not going away. So just stay by my side, speak when spoken to, and we’ll see how this goes.’

Indi pretended to zip her lips and nodded. His stern face softened and a smile tugged at the corners of his mouth. He headed back to the team.

Indi was still standing there, doing her happy dance in her mind.
Man, he has the most exquisite eyes
, she thought. Up close she could see the tiny flecks of gold in his swirling dark chocolate irises. They were so mysterious, as if he were hiding dark secrets. She trembled at the thought. Finally, someone she didn’t know everything about.

‘Indi?’

‘Huh?’ She shook her head and realised Troy was waiting for her to join him. Crap!
Stay by my side
– isn’t that what he’d said? She jogged towards him and tried to hide her excitement. Inside her nerves were buzzing like fire ants under her skin. This was going to be the best football season ever.

Indi pulled Trevor’s washing out of the machine and carried the basket outside to his clothesline. Already a week had passed since she’d officially become Troy’s right-hand woman. She thought there might be more conversation, more interaction, more learning. Hopefully that would come later.

She started to hang up a large pair of white undies that could have been used to sail a boat. Just as she’d finished hanging up the last item, she collected the dry cotton shirts and underpants from the line. There was no way she was going to get old and wear big undergarments like these. She heard her name called and quickly grabbed the basket, heading back inside.

‘I’m here, Trevor. You okay?’ She put the basket on the floor in the small lounge room. The old brown carpet had seen better days. Indi knelt beside Trevor, who sat in his recliner. She put her hand over his frail, knobbly hand as she waited.

‘I was just saying, dear, that dinner smells like it might be burning.’ Trevor looked over his glasses at her. Any further down his nose and the large metal frames would fall to the floor.

‘I’ll go check.’ She patted Trevor’s hand and headed to his kitchen with its old-fashioned decorations. He’d lived in this house for most of his life. There was history in every corner, on every wall and in every drawer. Indi learnt something new each visit. Trevor was always telling her stories. Last week she’d cleaned out the linen cupboard that the mice had got into and found a collection of old wedding gifts they’d never used. Trev then told her all about their wedding day out on the farm and how fetching Elsie looked in her white lace dress. ‘I felt like the luckiest bloke in the whole world,’ he’d said, with a sparkle of life in his aged eyes.

The casserole she’d made for Trevor’s dinner was perfect. ‘Here,’ she said, getting the tray table and putting his dinner down on his lap.

‘Oh, it looks great. Thanks, Indi.’

‘I’ll put the rest in little containers so you’ll have dinner sorted for the next few nights.’

‘Are you going to have some, dear?’ he asked in his gravelly voice.

Trevor was eighty-eight, but still very switched on. Sure, he wandered off from time to time, could be vague on the odd occasion, but he was as tough as they came and there was plenty of fight in him yet. Which was why he refused to move into a nursing home. Hyden was his home. His wife, Elsie, was buried there and their only son was nearby. Indi could understand that he didn’t want to leave. Her mum had hated every minute that she spent in the hospital and longed to be home.

‘You cook like your mum, Indi. I miss her,’ he said, his fork hovering above his bowl.

Indi had begun to fold his washing and paused to smile at him. ‘I do too.’ Every week her mum had dropped in on Trevor, to help him out and to cook him something nice. Even when she was sick she never missed a day. Indi had started going with her, often doing all the tasks while her mum chatted to Trevor. After her mum died, Indi just kept coming. She couldn’t abandon Trev, and now they’d formed an even deeper bond.

Indi blinked away tears as she watched him eat. He was bald except for the hair sprouting from his ears, and he had a big nose that had hosted a few cancers. She loved him fiercely, as if he were her own grandfather.

Indi had the washing all neatly folded on the coffee table and then glanced at her watch. ‘Oh, crap.’ She was late for footy training again.

‘That should be your catchphrase, Indi,’ Trevor teased.

‘I’m sorry, Trev. I’ll just do up the dinners quickly and then head off.’ She bent and kissed his wrinkly cheek. He held her arm.

‘You whip those boys into shape, Indi. I want to see them win a few games before I croak it, you hear?’

‘Yes, sir.’ She saluted with a smirk.

When she finally got to the oval she was fifteen minutes late. Troy was on the oval kicking the football with the guys. Her jaw just about dropped as she watched him kick a torpedo straight through the posts. He looked good doing it.

Troy got the guys to work on handballing and he headed over towards Indi. She could see Troy’s frown from where she stood.

‘I know, I’m sorry.’
No point bothering with an excuse
, she figured. ‘How are they going?’

Troy was enchanting as she listened to his husky but sure voice run her through what he had planned for the training session.

‘I made up these sheets. Just trying to work out some positions,’ he said, passing them over. He’d been doing his homework, working out the guys’ strengths and weaknesses. She cocked an eyebrow as she studied Troy, realising she’d just found someone who might love footy more than she did.

‘What?’ he asked. ‘Too much?’

She smiled and shook her head. ‘No, it’s not that. I think it’s fantastic that you’re so organised and taking this seriously. We’ve always just bumbled along,’ she said with a shrug.

‘So that’s a compliment?’

‘Sure is.’ She liked the small smile he gave her; it softened his chiselled features. He looked a lot like Josh Duhamel when she thought about it.

‘So how come you don’t play? You kick a mean ball,’ she said, trying to keep the awe from her voice. His smile disappeared. ‘Someone has to coach,’ he said and shrugged. ‘So, this jumper presentation on Saturday – what do I have to do?’ he asked. Again his eyes didn’t stay on her for long. The sudden change in his demeanour and the subject didn’t go unnoticed but she let it slide. ‘Don’t worry – I’ve got Patrick organising the numbers. All you have to do is hand them out. I’ve got a Saints jacket for you too.’‘Thanks, Indi,’ he said before his focus returned to the boys on the field.

*

Indi lost track of time as she sat on the sideline watching the team train. The light had faded by the time she felt a tap on her shoulder. ‘Hey, Indi, how’s it going?’ Tegan said.

Indi hugged her friend. ‘Tegan, hey, mate. What’re you up to?’

‘I’m just here to watch Jaffa. He wanted a lift home. He had to drop the tractor in for repairs earlier.’ Tegan’s freckles were hidden beneath make-up.

The girls had gone to primary school together in Hyden but had been sent to different high schools in the city. The moment Indi had moved back to Hyden to look after her mum, the two girls had bonded again.