Eighteen
Lachlan drove along the well-worn track that followed the western boundary fence. Rowena had been quiet since they’d returned to the vehicle fifteen minutes ago. He wasn’t sure if she was taking it all in, completely overwhelmed or just fending off tiredness.
‘You okay?’ he asked.
‘Bit icky,’ she admitted with a grimace, pulling a roll of Life Savers from her pocket and popping one in her mouth.
Her morning sickness had been so much better since she’d started drinking tea. But as she sucked furiously on the lolly, it was a reminder for Lachlan that, while it was manageable now, it wasn’t completely gone.
Still, despite her wretchedness and his associated feelings of helplessness, Lachlan secretly took her continuing battle with the morning—all day, in her case—sickness as a good thing.
His trusty library book told him nausea and vomiting during the first trimester was a sign of climbing hCG, a hormone vital for a healthy pregnancy.
So that was surely a plus?
Giving the Life Saver some time to work its magic, Lachlan kept his eye on the fence that he and Albert and their neighbours in the cluster had strung with their own hands and the help of a mechanical digger.
‘What are you looking for?’ she asked eventually. ‘Holes?’
Glancing at Rowena’s profile, he nodded before returning his attention to the road. ‘Pretty much.’
‘Don’t you guys use drones for this kind of thing? I’m sure I saw something on telly about it a while back.’
‘Yep, we have a drone that can be used for checking fences and water troughs and dam levels. And for mustering, too. But this is a good way to show you the property and I like to be able to eyeball everything regularly. Drones often can’t pick up small issues.’
‘So, did you build this fence?’
‘Would you be impressed if I said yes?’
‘Yes.’ She glanced at him, clearly impressed. ‘This is a big-arse fence.’
Lachlan laughed. ‘Well, I can’t claim all the credit. It’s the western boundary of a cluster fence that’s a joint effort between Blairgowrie and our three surrounding neighbours.’
‘What’s a cluster fence?’
‘It’s where a group of adjacent properties form a cooperative to fence around all the properties in the cluster to form an exclusion zone.
It’s to keep out the wild dogs. We were all losing a lot of stock to them.
A lot. I lost six hundred. It was diabolical, really.
That’s not only something that affects our bottom line—less sheep, less lambs—but is an exceptionally grisly way for a sheep to meet its end. ’
She shuddered. ‘Oh no, the poor sheep.’
‘It was an expensive outlay, but subsidies were available and the rest is shared between the properties, and it’s made a dramatic difference. We’ve had no problems with dogs since.’
Satisfied that the section of fence he’d earmarked to inspect was intact, Lachlan went cross country, checking a nearby water asset.
Thanks to sensor and app technology he could see with a tap of his finger on his phone the depth of the many poly tanks around the property, but it never hurt to check the readings were accurate and the condition of the cement troughs situated near every tank.
He checked several more as he headed for the billabong in the far eastern section of the property. Sometimes he stuck to tracks but, because Lachlan knew the property like the back of his hand, he often cut through the bush to get where he was going quicker.
Rowena didn’t seem to mind, pointing in delight at a stampede of emus running like the blazes in the distance.
She also got out of the vehicle with him each time, asking him questions about bores and pumps and annual rainfall and the water table and how much a sheep drank in a day, amongst myriad other things.
Her interest was heartening in ways that Lachlan did not want to probe. Gabby had found anything to do with the farm monumentally boring, her eyes glazing over at any kind of farm speak. But it was easy to be interested, he supposed, if being here was only a temporary thing.
Although the mere thought of that was like a sharp little stone inside his boot.
Still, he enjoyed her company as they bumped along. She laughed as he regaled her with stories of falling into troughs and his first ever encounter with a ram. And when they reached their final destination, her breathy, ‘Ohhh,’ made him smile.
It was exactly how he always felt when he came here. It wasn’t large, certainly not in comparison to some of Blairgowrie’s water assets—maybe a hundred metres in circumference—but it was a sight to behold.
It was special.
This time of day in particular, with the soft streaks of late afternoon sun poking through the trees, bathing everything in a rosy gold.
Lachlan pulled the vehicle to a stop, letting the engine idle. Nearby corellas lapping at the edge of the water took off in noisy, indignant flight at the rude interruption, speckling the vast blue curve in white.
‘Welcome to my favourite spot on Blairgowrie.’
‘Lachy,’ she said, looking at him then back at the view, her voice husky with delight. ‘This is gorgeous.’
‘It is.’
He grinned as he slowly drove the vehicle to the southern end, parking it beside an elevated wooden platform that projected out a few metres over the water. It had been here for as long as he could remember. Longer than even Reggie had been around, apparently.
Switching off the engine, he said, ‘Come on.’
He grabbed the chairs and the picnic basket from the back, setting them up on the aged planks.
‘How did this get here?’ she asked as she walked to the edge of the platform and stared across the billabong.
Thanks to the profusion of waterlogged roots from trees that had sprung up around the edge over many generations and an accumulation of dead leaf litter on the bottom, the water looked tea coloured, but was actually clear.
The two other dams they’d passed on the property had been man-made and a muddy brown, completely barren of vegetation, which made this look like an oasis in comparison. Several lily pads floating on the surface supported this illusion, their white flowers attracting the mad flutter of dragonflies.
‘Hydrologists reckon it used to be a loop in the river until it changed course a couple of hundred years ago.’
‘There’s a river near here?’
He chuckled. ‘Not anymore, no. Not on Blairgowrie. It cuts through the southern end of the property next door. But when it rains a lot, as it has these past few years, water travels back through the system via smaller creeks and gullies to here.’
Lachlan stood beside her and pointed to the deep gashes in the ground that snaked out haphazardly from the billabong perimeter, ruining the otherwise almost perfectly circular shape. They furrowed through the scrubby landscape until they either petered out or disappeared from sight.
‘Does it ever dry up?’
‘Sure, during a drought. Everything dries up. But there’s still a lot of water lying around in creek beds and gullies right now and favourable forecasts for late spring rain, so there’s no danger of it happening any time soon.’
‘I was surprised how green it was out here,’ she said as she slowly perused the scene in front of her. ‘I thought the further out we got, the more barren the landscape would become, but there are so many trees and all that tufty grass—’ She pointed to the tussocks they’d driven over. ‘Everywhere.’
‘That’s Mitchell grass. The consistent rain we’ve had these past few years has seen it run wild, which means there’s plenty for the sheep to graze on.’
‘Sheep like it?’
‘Sheep love it.’ He chuckled. ‘And the less we have to supplement them, the better for our bottom line.’
‘Speaking of sheep.’ She turned to face him. ‘Did I see that Reggie made up some cold lamb and pickle sandwiches?’ She tipped her chin at the basket that Lachlan had placed between the two chairs.
‘You sure did. And a thermos of tea.’
She sighed blissfully. ‘Bless her cotton socks.’
They sat then, and Lachlan passed over the thermos—the old tartan one with the white plastic cup lid that Reggie had bought brand new in the seventies and refused to part with. Rowena made her tea while he dug out the sandwiches.
‘It’s so peaceful here,’ she murmured as she eased back in the chair, blew on her tea and took a sip.
‘Yeah.’ He loaded a bright red plastic picnic plate with one of the six double sandwiches Reggie had packed—in case they ran into an army, perhaps?—and placed it in her lap before plating his own. ‘I used to camp out here when I was a teenager.’
‘By yourself?’
Lachlan shook his head. ‘No. With mates from school. They all came from properties too, and we’d drive out Friday afternoon with a carton of beer, a supply of food and a loaded boom box, and just eat and drink and swim and lie about how many girls we’d kissed.’
She laughed. ‘Oh yeah?’ Meeting his gaze, she quirked an eyebrow. ‘And what was your tally?’
He grinned. ‘That depended on how many beers I’d had.’
She laughed again. ‘Did you bring any girls out here?’
Lachlan feigned a look of moral outrage, enjoying their light, easy conversation. ‘I’ll have you know, I wasn’t that kind of guy.’
Holding his gaze, she said, ‘They all said no, huh?’
He sighed. ‘Yep.’
‘And if one had said yes? What would you have done?’
‘You mean after I’d picked my jaw up off the ground and changed my pants?’
More laughter. ‘Yes.’
‘I’d have broken the land speed record getting her out here.’
‘Right?’ She looked out over the vista. ‘It’s a perfect place for a seduction. Pretty and secluded. Very private. Stargazing at night, skinny dipping during—’
She cut off abruptly, as if she’d remembered who she was with and their history together. ‘I mean.’ She glanced at him, clearly alarmed that he might have taken it the wrong way. ‘I didn’t mean … That wasn’t a—’
‘Ro,’ he cut in, chuckling at the mild expression of panic on her face, while trying not to be insulted by how alarming she found the idea of them getting it on out here. ‘Take a breath. It’s all good. I know what you meant.’
‘Oh god, I’m sorry. I guess I just got swept up in the … romantic ambience.’
‘It’s fine,’ he assured.
She bit into her sandwich, leaving him to contemplate the ambience. It was romantic, he supposed, but not in the way a claw-foot tub and twinkle lights were. That was manufactured.
This was pure, unadorned and wild.
‘I’ve never brought a girl out here, actually.’
Caught mid-chew, Rowena glanced sideways at him, her scrutiny hot on his face. She swallowed then asked, her voice tentative, ‘Not even Gabby?’
‘Nope.’ Lachlan shook his head, keeping his eyes fixed on the other side of the billabong. ‘She didn’t like being bounced about in the ute. And it was high summer when she was here—she didn’t like being out in the heat. She wasn’t a fan of sweat. Hers or mine.’
‘That’s a … bit of an occupational hazard for you.’
‘Yup.’
Gabby had always squirmed away whenever he’d gone in for a hello kiss after a long sweaty day, demanding he shower first. Not because he’d stunk—he’d always kept deodorant in his glove box—but because sweat was so biological and that kind of thing grossed her out.
Also, to be fair to her, she’d married a cop. Who investigated traffic accidents. Which could be hot, hard work out on a road somewhere or at a worksite during the initial investigative process, but mostly involved desk work in air-conditioned offices.
He’d rarely sweated.
Sweat hadn’t been part of their city life, and it wasn’t Gabby’s fault that he’d—literally—changed the landscape on her. She could have refused to come to Blairgowrie full stop. But she hadn’t. She had tried to make their marriage work.
They lapsed into silence as the sun slowly dipped below the horizon. The soft afternoon light evaporated like ether from between the tree trunks, replaced with the first breath of cool night air.
Lachlan noticed that Rowena only finished half her sandwich and nibbled at one of Reggie’s famous Anzac biscuits. But she drank all her tea and, frankly, that was more than she could eat in a single setting a few weeks ago so … progress!
It was on the tip of his tongue to ask her about a scan. He’d been reading up on it and, aside from giving them some accurate dates, it could also pick up foetal abnormalities.
And, of course, there was some selfishness there, too.
He’d watched about a hundred YouTube foetal scans and the moment the stenographer pushed the button and that tiny heartbeat filled the room? He wanted that. He wanted to hear his baby’s heartbeat.
Not to mention that the books stressed the importance of early obstetric care in a pregnancy. And here they were at almost twelve weeks and Rowena hadn’t seen anybody.
He rolled his head to the side to ask her about it. To gently suggest maybe they should get one done. There was something about the hush right now that made him think she’d be receptive to his request, that she’d be able to see why it was so important to him.
But her eyes were shut, and she looked so restful he didn’t have the heart to wake her.