NINETEEN
Nineteen
Bel listened to the phone as it rang before Emma answered. ‘Hey,’ Bel said. ‘How’s things going?’
‘Better today. He’s saying a few words and the doctors are happy that he’s got a bit more sensation in his feet and legs. They’re going to move him to the rehab ward tomorrow.’
‘That’s great news,’ Bel said, relief rushing through her.
‘Yeah, it is. They’ve warned me he might relapse a bit for a while, in terms of being able to follow commands consistently, doing things today that maybe he won’t do again tomorrow, that kind of thing. It’s just the way it is with this recovery thing. It’s going to be a long, slow process.’
‘Are you doing okay?’ Bel asked softly.
‘Yeah,’ Emma said, sounding weary. ‘I mean, it’s exhausting but I’m not even doing anything, just sitting beside his bed and holding his hand and talking to him non-bloody-stop to try and jog his memory. It’s probably driving him crazy.’ She gave a weary chuckle. ‘I miss the kids so much, but I can’t leave him yet. Even with his family here, I just can’t do it. I have this feeling that he needs me to be here or he might just … give up.’
‘Oh, Em. He’s not going to do that. He loves you and the kids so much. He’ll keep fighting to get through all this. The kids miss you too, but you have to do whatever you need to do. They know you’re down there helping their dad. They’re doing fine. I promise.’
‘I know they’re in good hands. And honestly, I don’t want them down here, seeing him like this … If he keeps making progress, then I’ll bring them down, but it’s just too soon. He’d hate them to see him and get upset by it. It’s hard enough for me seeing him this way, I can’t even imagine how the kids would handle it.’
‘Whatever happens, they’ll accept it. Kids seem to adapt to things,’ Bel said, thinking back to how well they’d accepted her moving in with them. ‘But for now, just focus on you and Craig.’
Bel heard her let out a fortifying breath and imagined her friend straightening her shoulders and regrouping. ‘So, what’s new there?’ Emma asked. ‘The kids sounded better today. Happier.’
‘Yeah, they’re doing really well. They miss you both, but we’ve managed to keep them distracted most of the time. I think that’s helping.’
‘So I’ve been hearing. The kids are full of Aunty Bel and Uncle Dean stories.’
Bel automatically thought back to earlier and squeezed her eyes shut. It was all so new and unexpected, but she’d never kept anything from her friend before. ‘I slept with him,’ she blurted before clamping her lips shut firmly. Oh God, why did I do that?
‘It’s about time.’
‘What?’
‘Seriously, you two have been dancing around this whole attraction thing for ages.’
‘That’s not true. I could barely stand him before I left.’
‘You told yourself that. Everyone else could see what was really going on.’
‘How nice for you all to have such clarity about something I had no idea about.’
‘Don’t get all snitty. You clearly had to learn a few life lessons before you were ready to see the truth. But now you have and I am beyond excited for you both.’
‘Calm down. We’re not engaged. We had … a moment.’
‘Everything will fall into place.’
‘Or not. I don’t want to make a big deal out of it.’
‘But it is a big deal. I mean … how was it?’
‘It was … pretty amazing,’ Bel admitted. ‘He’s been so great with the kids, helping with everything. I’m not sure I could have handled all this on my own.’
‘Sure you could. But I’m glad you didn’t have to. I can’t tell you how much of a load it’s taken off me to know the kids are okay.’
‘Just concentrate on getting that man of yours better. Don’t worry about anything out here.’
Bel ended the call and stared down at the biscuits. There were other people with bigger problems than her. And to think she’d been stressing over something as mundane as baking.
‘You should be on MasterChef , Aunty Bel,’ Ayla said, reaching for her third biscuit later that afternoon.
‘These are delicious!’ Ben said around a mouthful of crumbs.
‘I’m glad you like them,’ Bel said, only feeling slightly guilty for not mentioning that Dean had actually made them, not her.
‘We love them. Can you make some more?’ Ayla asked.
Bel swallowed before mustering a confident smile. ‘Absolutely. But maybe not today. I’ve used all the butter. Okay, now that we’ve done afternoon tea, it’s homework time,’ she said, rolling her eyes at the groans that followed. ‘I know. Homework sucks. But we have to do it.’
‘I wanna do homework,’ Lucy said.
‘You’re in preschool,’ Ivy told her. ‘You don’t get homework.’
‘I wanna do homework,’ Lucy repeated, her bottom lip beginning to tremble as she looked up at Bel with big, devastated eyes.
‘You can do some homework too,’ Bel assured her, clapping her hands at the small bodies slowly climbing off bar stools to retrieve their school bags.
It took a further thirty minutes to set everyone up with their books and find something to keep Lucy occupied, but eventually everyone was on task and the routine was back on track.
‘Aunty Bel, I don’t know what I have to do,’ Ben said, his head resting in his hand as he dug a hole in the paper with his pencil.
‘Let me see.’ Bel took his book, suspecting he wasn’t even really trying. She did feel bad for them—they’d been sitting at a desk in school all day and now all they wanted to do was run outside—but Em’s chart on the fridge said homework until four-thirty.
She began reading the instructions at the top of the printed page Ben had glued into his book—crooked—and frowned. She read it again. Okay, this is strange. She tried reading it a third time and felt a flutter of panic. The kid was in kindergarten, it shouldn’t be difficult! And yet, as she read through the rather detailed and long instructions, she found herself completely confused. How was a five-year-old supposed to understand these instructions when even she couldn’t even make sense of them? It can’t be that hard.
She glanced at the clock on the wall and felt sweat beads break out on her forehead. It was almost four-thirty …
‘Okay!’ she said in an overly bright tone. ‘Pens down. We’re going outside for a play. We’ll finish homework later.’
Four little voices chorused happily as they slid off their seats. They were out the back door before she even had time to call out to be careful. Bel dragged Ben’s book closer, trying not to panic. She was a grown adult. Surely Emma wouldn’t have left her in charge of her children if she didn’t think she could figure out something as basic as Year One homework.
Bel smiled as she followed the kids into Emma’s room and watched them scramble up onto the huge bed. This was her favourite part of the day.
Ivy rubbed her face against her arm as she snuggled in. ‘You smell like Dean,’ she said.
‘Really?’ She decided to play dumb and hope for the best. ‘Okay, where were we up to?’
It didn’t take too much arm-twisting to get Bel to read a couple of extra chapters—she was enjoying the story as much as the kids were—but with Lucy struggling to keep her eyes open, she called it a night and hustled them all into their own beds.
‘Aunty Bel, your shirt is inside out,’ Ayla said sleepily as Bel walked into her room.
Crap! Really? ‘I must have been in a rush to get dressed this morning. Silly me.’
She dragged her shirt up over her head as she undressed to take a shower and gave it a sniff. It did smell like Dean. A few images of the events which had taken place mid-morning flashed briefly through her mind. She’d done her best to stay busy and not think too much about it, but now, with no kids to distract her, it was difficult to keep the thoughts at bay.
It had been like something out of a romance novel—a moment of uncontrollable lust, in the kitchen of all places. She’d never even imagined stuff like that happened in real life, and here she was, living it, and with a wholesome country boy no less. Things like hot kitchen sex always happened with bad boys, not farmers. Or so she’d thought. Clearly Dean didn’t play by the rules of stereotype.
Bel stepped under the stream of hot water, lathered up her hair and did her best to ignore the tiny little aches, lingering reminders of the day’s events.
The next day, Bel’s phone started to ding and ping constantly. She didn’t have time for the distraction, with a number of invoices to send out and a few jobs she was working on. Irritated, she eventually put it on silent.
When she picked the phone up a few hours later, she shook her head at the crazy number of notifications lighting up her screen, and tentatively opened her Instagram app.
The numbers of shares on her post about Elvis had exploded. The Federal Police had also gotten in on the act, playfully bantering with other law enforcers and taking the whole tongue-in-cheek post one step further by tagging ASIO. This is getting out of hand.
That night, after Emma had spoken with the kids before bedtime, Bel took the phone.
‘Bel, your post is all over the internet!’ Emma cried.
‘I know,’ she groaned.
‘What on earth is going on?’
‘It started out as a bit of fun when I discovered someone had stolen Elvis. I had no idea it would go this far. I mean, who the hell would steal it? Although I bet Bob Baxter is getting a bit antsy with all this sudden attention.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘That it was probably him who stole Elvis.’
‘Don’t go saying that out loud, for God’s sake. He’ll sue you.’
‘Well, it’s something he’d do.’
‘Maybe whoever took it will put it back now that there’s all this attention?’
‘Maybe. Who knows,’ Bel said. ‘Well, I better go and get these kids into bed. I’ll talk to you tomorrow.’
Bel had been determined to master the whole biscuit thing once and for all, and finally had a win with a jam drop recipe she’d found online. The kids decided that Dean should try some and begged her to invite him over.
The night before, he’d called once the kids were in bed and they’d talked till late, but they hadn’t seen each other since he’d left yesterday morning. Bel was annoyed to realise she felt like a nervous schoolgirl at the thought of seeing him. ‘I think he might be a bit busy,’ she hedged, feeling awkward.
‘I’ll call him,’ Ayla said. ‘Mummy lets me call Nanna on the phone all the time.’
‘She does not. She said you have to ask first,’ Ivy pointed out.
‘Can I call Dean?’ Ben asked.
‘No. I’m the oldest,’ Ayla protested.
‘You’re not the boss,’ Ivy argued.
‘I like blueberries,’ Lucy chimed in without lifting her eyes from the drawing she was quietly doing at the end of the kitchen bench.
Bel gave a small sigh before picking up her phone and raising her voice. ‘ I’ll call him,’ she said firmly. It’s like working in a freaking three-ring circus. The phone rang but switched to a brief instruction to leave a message after the tone. ‘He didn’t answer, guys. He’s probably busy. We can invite him over another time.’
‘We can take some over and leave them at his front door? That’s what Mummy does sometimes,’ Ivy suggested helpfully.
‘She does?’ Bel asked.
‘Yeah. Sometimes she cooks him dinner and drops it over there because you know what single men are like,’ Ayla said, rolling her eyes. ‘That’s what Mummy always says to Daddy.’
Bel chuckled. ‘Well, I suppose we could drop some over.’ It was the least she could do, really.
After packaging up a number of biscuits into a container, they all bundled into the car and headed off.
Dean’s driveway was less impressive than Emma and Craig’s, just a rough dirt track and a few weeds. The house was white timber and could do with a new coat of paint but it had a rustic charm, with its bullnosed verandah wrapping around the square building. There were three enormous sheds across a wide clearing from the house, but nothing more than a few shade-giving trees scattered around the yard for a garden.
‘Can I take the biscuits, Aunty Bel?’ Ben asked.
‘Can I?’ Ivy piped up, followed by the usual protest from the others in the back seat.
‘Do we have to do this every single time, guys?’ she asked wearily. While she was still trying to play referee, a tap at her window made her jump.
‘Hi,’ Dean said when she opened the door.
‘Hi,’ she echoed. A flutter of butterflies invaded her stomach as she latched onto the smile that spread across his face, before remembering she had a car full of arguing children.
‘We bought you bickies. Aunty Bel made them,’ Ivy informed him.
‘Oh, yeah?’
‘They’re surprisingly edible,’ Bel assured him. ‘The kids wanted to invite you over for afternoon tea but we thought maybe you were a bit busy.’
‘So we brought some over to surprise you, like Mummy does with your dinner,’ Ayla put in.
‘Thanks, guys,’ he said, smiling at the beaming faces behind Bel. ‘I was working out in the shed. But how about we have afternoon tea here?’
The back doors were thrust open and four little bodies were scrambling out of the car before Bel even had time to agree. ‘I guess that’s a yes,’ she murmured, then unclipped her seatbelt to slide from the driver’s seat. She glanced up when Dean lowered his head to place a gentle kiss on her lips before moving back to allow her to walk past.
‘This is a nice surprise,’ he said. ‘I’ve been trying to come up with an excuse to go over to your place all day.’
‘You didn’t need an excuse,’ she said, suddenly shy but also happy that she wasn’t the only one feeling this way.
‘I haven’t been able to stop thinking about yesterday.’
She opened her mouth to agree but didn’t get a chance to reply as Ben came over and began jumping up and down like an excited puppy. Dean and Bel swapped a wry look before he herded the kids inside to organise drinks and jam drops.
Bel clicked her tongue irritably as her ringtone sounded during the chaos of breakfast the next morning. She searched for her phone, locating it under a hat on the bench. ‘Put this in your bag, Ivy,’ she said handing over the hat and answering the call in a breathless rush.
‘Is that Bel Buckley?’
‘Yes, it is,’ she said, distracted by the twins arguing over a toy they weren’t even supposed to be playing with.
‘This is Peggy Armstrong from Mornings with Georgia-Mae . We’d like to organise an interview with you tomorrow morning.’
‘Sorry, what?’ Bel watched Mornings with Georgia-Mae most mornings. Is this a joke?
‘Your story about Elvis the missing rooster has been gaining a lot of traction and we think it would be a great fit for our breakfast audience.’
‘Uh … really?’ Good grief. She’d never imagined her post would get this kind of reaction.
‘Absolutely. I’ll send you an email with all the details and get back in touch with you a little bit later today.’
Bel rattled off her email address to the chipper woman before lowering her phone to the bench. What on earth had she just agreed to?
After school drop-off, she parked up the road and took out her phone, opening it to find an email from the TV show waiting in her inbox. They were sending a freelance cameraman out from Dubbo early the next day to set up for a live interview.
‘A live morning show appearance? That’s … wow,’ Dean said when she called him in a panic.
‘It’s crazy is what it is,’ she clarified.
‘Well, you wanted to raise some awareness. I guess this will do it.’
‘Yeah, but now this missing rooster sounds dumb.’
‘I hate to tell you, but it always sounded kinda dumb,’ he said, chuckling. ‘Okay, sorry, that’s not being helpful. Look at it this way, you’ll be promoting Wessex and the Big Rooster. Maybe this will give the tourism campaign a bit of a push?’
‘Maybe,’ she conceded dully. She just wished she wasn’t the one who was going to have to talk about it. She already knew they wanted to use it as light-hearted entertainment, and she didn’t particularly want to be the butt of the joke.
‘So get the progress committee involved,’ Dean suggested. ‘They’ll probably want to be.’
She’d already sent a message to Betty and forwarded the email. With any luck, Betty would step in. She was never afraid of being front and centre.
Bel had barely slept; she was way too nervous about the whole stupid interview. The kids were beyond excited, staying up past their bedtime to make signs to hold up in the background while she was being interviewed and, for once, they were ready even before Bel the next morning.
She shouldn’t have been surprised at the crowd, which had already gathered in front of the statue of Elvis on the main street. Word of mouth spread news faster than any phone line and it seemed like the entire population of Wessex had turned out for their fifteen minutes of fame on national television.
Even Bob Baxter was there. ‘The hide of that man,’ Betty scoffed, staring daggers. ‘Coming to witness all the ruckus over his crime.’
‘Make sure you don’t say that on TV,’ Bel suggested weakly. She hadn’t gotten out of the interview completely, but Betty had been more than happy to do it with her, and she had a feeling she wouldn’t be needing to say much once Betty got started.
Chris the cameraman was a stout forty-something with a decided lack of outward emotion. After a brief run-down of how the segment would go, he handed Bel and Betty each an earpiece and hooked them up with microphones, which was apparently referred to as ‘micing up the talent’, as the email the day before had explained. Bel had never been referred to as talent before, so it was somewhat nerve-racking. Betty, on the other hand, was enjoying the attention and looked like she’d been born to stand in front of a man with a camera. The host of the show would be asking questions through the earpieces when they were given the cue. Bel wasn’t sure if she wanted to throw up or run, but there wasn’t time to do either because Chris the cameraman was suddenly counting them down and then they were live in front of the entire nation.
Fuck . For a horrifying moment, she thought she had sworn out loud, but then she realised the sound was the host, Georgia-Mae Bartlet, welcoming her to the show.
‘Were you surprised by all the interest in the story?’ Georgia-Mae asked Bel after giving the audience a run-down of where the town was and the story of her initial post going viral.
‘Completely. I had no idea when I posted the story that it’d become this big.’
‘In all seriousness, though, despite the light-hearted banter going on between the different law enforcement agencies, this is a bit of a mystery isn’t it, this question of who stole the town mascot?’
Betty immediately cut in, angling herself in front of Bel. ‘It’s a crime is what it is. Elvis is the heart and soul of Wessex. He’s more than a mascot. He’s irreplaceable.’
Bel cringed a little at the overly dramatic response. Heart and soul might be going a little too far.
‘Have there been any leads in the story? Do we have any further ransom notes? I mean, it seems like a good idea to bring in ASIO since this is their area of expertise, and they did respond on their official Facebook page to the Federal Police’s post. Do you hope that with these extra resources you might be able to find out what happened to Elvis and get him back?’
‘I would certainly hope so,’ Betty said. ‘It may seem like a joke to most people, but I can assure you, stealing from a museum is a very serious crime. And between you and me, I suspect the culprit is someone with very close ties to the town, with a vendetta against our tourism push.’
The show’s host did seem to prick up at that little piece of scandal and Bel quickly jumped in before Betty could start naming names and getting herself slapped with a lawsuit.
‘We are encouraging anyone who might have been involved, perhaps as a practical joke, to return Elvis. We’re all after a peaceful resolution,’ Bel said.
‘That’s all we have time for this morning. Thank you, ladies, for joining us, and let’s hope Elvis is returned to his rightful place very soon.’
They said goodbye and their connection was cut. Bel felt her shoulders sag in relief. Thank God that’s over.
‘Did you see us waving, Mummy? Did Daddy see the sign we made?’ Ayla asked excitedly as the children gathered around Bel’s phone to talk to their mother.
‘I did. Daddy loved the sign. That was so exciting!’
‘And Aunty Bel was on TV. She’s famous!’ Ivy added.
‘She certainly is.’
Bel noticed her friend sounded a little distracted. ‘We have to get you lot to school so we’ll let Mummy go and we’ll call her this afternoon, okay?’ Taking the phone back and turning away from the kids, Bel added in a low voice, ‘Is everything okay?’
‘Yeah. Just waiting for the doctor to finish with Craig and give us an update.’
There was a note of concern in her friend’s voice and Bel knew she hadn’t been imagining the earlier distraction. ‘Are you worried it’ll be bad news?’ she asked cautiously.
Her question was greeted with a long pause, before Emma said, ‘I don’t know. Brain injuries can vary so much and they keep saying wait and see, but I just … don’t know. The doctors have mentioned that recovery can stop at any stage and he’s still barely talking. I’ve been trying so hard to stay optimistic and not expect too much too soon, but … I can’t help it, Bel. What if he doesn’t get any better than he is right now?’
Bel closed her eyes briefly at the thought. ‘Then we deal with that if it happens. I think you’ve had to be strong for so long and it’s only natural that you’d have moments where you feel overwhelmed. Maybe you need to come home for a bit and recharge your batteries. Have a break?’
‘I’ve been thinking about it,’ Emma agreed softly. ‘I could only be away a few days, though.’
‘Think it over.’
‘I gotta go, the doctor’s here. I’ll call you tonight.’
Bel slipped her phone into her back pocket and hurried to catch up to the kids walking ahead with a few of their friends.
The school had sent a notice out letting everyone know they were starting twenty minutes later to accommodate all the fanfare the interview had stirred up. It felt more like a town parade than a normal weekday morning, with people gathering in small groups to catch up and others ambling along the street as they began to disperse and move on. Maybe this whole going viral thing did have benefits. There was a definite vibe happening in their small town.