Chapter 18
MVP
Edmonton was an hour’s drive to the north-west, past Gordonvale.
Nev didn’t want to go. A denial letter from the insurance company burned a hole in her pocket.
She didn’t know what to do. The last-minute decision to go watch Ron’s AFL practice in Edmonton was Reg’s fault.
It wasn’t that she disliked Aussie rules football.
She had lived on the Tablelands long enough to become a devoted fan of the South Cairns men’s team, the Cutters.
Cutters was short for cane cutters. The team logo was a cartoon drawing of a man holding a machete. You couldn’t make this shit up. She followed the stats for the women’s team but didn’t attend games because that was Ron’s thing.
In the stands Reg waved, gesturing for her to sit beside him in the direct sun. He had saved her a spot with his jacket. He was wearing a wide-brimmed kangaroo-leather crusher hat.
She worried that the popcorn she brought from home wasn’t enough.
Reg leapt to his feet, hands braced around his mouth. “Let’s go, cutter giiiiiiirls!” He sat down. “They’re tight today.” The South Cairns Cutters Women’s team season started on the second Saturday morning in April, two and a half weeks from now.
Nev had to agree. This was the tail end of pre-season, so the players were physically in peak form.
During the season each team fielded eighteen players with six substitutes.
Tonight the team ran a practice match, shirts versus skins, ten to a side with four players waiting to sub in from the bench.
Ronnie was running striker for the shirts, full forward, front and center, closest to the opposing team’s goal.
The other woman playing full forward tonight was also tall.
They watched Ron kick a goal, score six points. Nev clapped.
Reg jumped up, cheered. “That’s my girl! Go Brum!” On the field Ron turned and waved at her dad while she jogged.
AFL was unique in that the teams played on an oval. It was a high-speed game, chaotic and violent. Players passed the ball with their feet or their fists.
After Ron’s goal the teams reset. The ruck was the tallest player on the team, and a striker could roll into a ruck easily from the forward line.
She and the ruck from the other side ran at the ball tossed in the air, jumping up to knock it down.
Ron just edged it over the other ruck’s hand, and the game continued, ball in play, runners hurtling down the pitch.
Nev watched, amazed. She had never had stamina like that. Every woman on the team had been the best player on her highschool team. They were all-stars.
She sent a prayer of thanks to whatever god had designed polyester footy shorts and footy players’ thighs.
Ron wasn’t wearing a black captain’s armband tonight—older players than her would have seniority—but she scored the most goals: three, and tied for the most goal assists: two.
By Nev’s maths, that made Dainty the MVP.
The night before Nev’s annual flight to Kigali, Ron lingered late after band practice, in no hurry to leave, perhaps because she had nowhere to go, watching footy in the living room while Nev tried to avoid thinking about Rwanda by instead psyching herself up to do something else vulnerable that scared her.
Distract and redirect. Look over here, not over there—one of the first horse training lessons Kazi had taught her.
She took a long breath, then forced it out between pursed lips.
She could do this. She had done harder things.
“Dain’y. I want you to see something.”
She showed Ron the mortgage payment, tax bill, most recent farm account statement and the letter from the insurance company denying her claim on the water-damaged hay.
“You do the maths. Tell me what it means.”
Ron went into the office with a calculator. Half an hour later she returned. Nev watched her. Ron carried herself differently. Something about her had changed.
A quote popped into Nev’s head, Render unto Caesar the things that are Caesar’s...
She apologized. “I should have been able to fix this. This was my job.” This was way above Ron’s pay grade, but of course the kicker was that Nev didn’t draw a salary.
“How long have you been supporting the farm with your personal money?”
“I never thought of it that way.”
“I know you didn’t,” Ron said gently, using her mum voice. Nev had overheard Ron use that patient tone with Rainbow when the girl accidentally broke something and then hid it out of fear of getting caught. “How much time do we have?”
That was decidedly not the mum voice. She preferred it over the mum voice. It was like a warm cup of tea. It sent shivers down her spine.
“How much have I got left? It’s all there. It’s all in the farm.”
Ron rubbed her lower lip, but looked determined, like she had made a decision. “In the morning I’ll go to the insurance place and talk to our agent. I’ll get him to fix this.”
“Good luck with that.”
“There’s a climate change disaster relief grant for farmers I heard about on the radio. You’ll apply for that. The national graziers’ association has an emergency fund, also. We’ll apply for everything.”
“Right.”
“You won’t like this,” Ron said, “but how much are you spending on this trip?”
Nev blinked.
Silence dragged.
Nev left the room, stood alone in the dark kitchen.
She had created a monster. It’s alive! You can take the cat out of the box, but you can’t put it back in.
Now Ron would start noticing things, changing things.
She would notice that Nev was an alcoholic, notice Nev still lived in 1994.
The thought of being discovered frightened her, but it was also exhilarating.
She hadn’t had a business partner since her father died.
She missed Emil. Missed his threadbare slippers and bathrobe, his old man smell, missed the way he looked at her and saw a child, missed being known. Missed the woman he had thought she was. Missed being his daughter.
She missed having a business partner. Making money multiply wasn’t her forte. She invested in things that died. She’d rather run a bloody charity.
The question was, could Ron manage money?
She went back in. Ron put down her phone.
Nev perched on the edge of the couch, spread her knees, tented her fingers. “I’ll make you a deal. If we don’t get any of those fat checks, I won’t go next year.”
“Deal,” Ron said.
Her guilt about burdening Ron with this boring adult problem lightened somewhat the next morning when she woke to find pomegranates in all the shoes: wedged deep inside the wellies under the bench in the mudroom, nestled in her sheepskin slippers under the bed, bowing out the sides of the white trainers by the back door, even plugging every last one of her dad’s cowboy boots in the guest bedroom closet.
She hadn’t gotten around to cleaning out that closet yet; it still smelled like Emil.
The big man had small tastes. When he found something he liked he stuck with it.
When she was younger she had dismissed that about him, written it off as a quirk, a fatal lack of creativity, but as she grew older she had come to admire him for it, even emulate him. Imitation was the highest praise.
He had left behind three pairs of black bootcut jeans and jackaroo boots, never worn, size Ron. Nev shook out a pair of pants, held them up to the window. She went to the kitchen, put the pants and boots on a chair for Ron. Then she finished packing her suitcase.