Bella's Run (9 page)

‘The toffs probably drank it all,’ said Patty as she collapsed into a soft leather chair. ‘Jeez, the décor’s a bit flash.’

‘Yeah, the visitors are mainly from Brisbane and overseas. They like the finer things in life. I’ll have a snoop around,’ Bella said as she walked off down the hall towards the bedrooms. ‘See if I can find us something to tipple.’

‘Fat chance,’ called Patty, bouncing up and down in the chair. ‘They would’ve taken it home. Like the cute little bottles of shampoo you flog when you stay at a motel.’

‘Oh ye of little faith!’ Bella waltzed back into the lounge holding an armful of clinking bottles. ‘I reckon there’s at least half left in each one. And there are six bedrooms, which means . . .’

‘. . . there should be plenty!’ Patty grinned. ‘This’ll help that vacuum go faster.’

‘And I reckon we deserve a reward for working so hard this year.’ Bella placed the bottles on top of the bar.

‘You betcha, girlie!’ Snatching a Bundy rum, Patty ripped off the top. ‘Here’s cheers, big ears!’

It was dusk when Siobhan walked in the laundry door of the guest house. Jimbo down at the stockmen’s quarters had been calling Bella and Patty over the radio for the last hour to no avail. He was wondering if they wanted their tea. Worried, he had rung his boss, and the boss – Siobhan – had responded.

Clad in a tight black miniskirt, topped with a deep V-neck top and tottering on killer heels that made her bunions hurt, Siobhan was on her way to Jack and Sheila McLaverty’s for dinner – a monthly get-together for all the station bosses. She’d left Robert out in the wagon taking a call on his satellite phone, while she checked on the whereabouts of the pain-in-the-arse Victorian floosies.

Thinking of the beautiful and buxom girl she was about to confront, she adjusted her tight skirt, wiggling it a little higher. She then pulled down her V-neck to show more of her meagre cleavage, pushed her arms into her sides to make the most of her push-up bra and tottered through the laundry door . . .

. . . face-planting over the vacuum cleaner she’d left there a few hours before. A vacuum that obviously had not been moved or used.

‘Shit! What was that?’ said Bella as she sat upright in the cane easy chair in the lounge.

‘What was what?’ asked Patty, who was sprawled in her favourite place when drunk – on the floor.

‘That noise!’

‘What noise?’

‘That noise I heard?’

‘What noise?’ repeated Patty.

‘Oh no, it was
that
noise!’ cried Bella as she tried to jump to her feet, overbalancing and crashing down across Patty instead.

‘The two Victorians were drunk,’ Siobhan told her dinner companions later on that evening. ‘Not just tipsy. Blind drunk. So drunk they were sprawled on top of each other on the floor. Disgusting.’

Indignant and self-righteous, she’d held forth over dinner with her opinions on the two girls and their behaviour until a wearied Sheila McLaverty had forcefully changed the subject. Privately Sheila cheered the two girls, knowing what a bitch Rob Davidson’s wife was. Sheila had her own thoughts on Bella and Patty, seeing first-hand the fun – and, yes, compassion – the two girls had brought to this far-flung outpost. Helping when Max had his accident and then ringing the Andersons in Brisbane every couple of days to see how they were all going; it was more than Siobhan had done. Thanks to Bella the gardens on the station had never looked so good, a cool green refuge for the stockmen after a long and hot day in the saddle. And then there was the previously high rate of sick leave from the stockmen’s camp. It was down to nil lately, thanks to Patty.

Sheila sighed. Having adult children herself, she knew it had been about time for the two girls to break out – young ones these days could only be good for
so
long – but it was just unfortunate they chose to do so on Siobhan’s time and turf.

‘So I told them they were
fired
!’ said Siobhan, satisfaction in her voice. ‘Didn’t I, Robert? They leave tomorrow. I will
not
tolerate such behaviour. It’s a bad influence on the rest of the staff.’

Jack stifled a laugh, and Sheila knew her husband was thinking that half the station hands would have been long gone if Siobhan had her way. Most of their best stockmen had a love affair with the bottle. It was just the way it was in this lonely part of the world.

Sheila made a mental note to go down to the stockmen’s quarters in the morning and bid the girls goodbye. She’d also ring the old stockman from Johanna Downs, Harry Bailey. He was really fond of the girls, which was saying something; not much crept under that crusty bushman’s veneer. He was better with horses than people. Harry could take the most recalcitrant, wild-eyed steed and in a couple of hours have that same animal lying on the ground with Harry sitting on its belly whispering sweet nothings in its ears. He was known throughout Queensland and the Territory for his horse whispering.

Looking across the table, Sheila could see Rob’s uncomfortable expression. No doubt he was thinking he was now down a ringer, a gardener
and
a fill-in cook. It served him right. If he couldn’t keep his wife’s spitefulness in hand, he deserved all the trouble he got.

There was quite a crowd to see them off, something the girls hadn’t expected. Sheila and Jack, having got over his missing loader by now. Rodney along with Jimbo the cook.

Harry Bailey turned up at the last minute to give both girls a handmade leather wallet, each engraved with their name; a souvenir from their time in outback Queensland. Tears came to both girls’ eyes as old Harry handed over his presents. ‘I’ve been making them for a while, but finished them off last night after I heard you were leaving. Now don’t you go forgetting, Bella me girl.’ Harry leaned in and gave her a rough hug.

‘Don’t forget what, Harry?’

‘How to lace that bloody girth.’

Bella burst out laughing, making everyone turn in their direction, while Harry ducked his head in embarrassment.

‘We use
real
stock saddles in Victoria, Harry. With proper girths that have buckles. You come on down one day and I’ll show you how we do it in the mountains.’

‘Now, Bella,’ cut in an amused Patty, ‘don’t you think he’s a bit old for you? Plus I think a certain brother of mine might get jealous.’

The whole crowd around Patty’s red Holden ute roared and Harry didn’t know which way to look. ‘Just kidding, Harry, just kidding,’ said Patty as she gave the old man a hug. ‘And I promise, if I win the whip-cracking championship at the Nunkeri Muster again this year, I’ll give you a ring.’

‘You do that, girlie. Be nice to hear all those Sundaymorning practice sessions didn’t go to waste.’

‘What’s this, Harry? You haven’t been giving her lessons, have you?’ Bella pouted at the old man. ‘Patty was impossible to beat last year, without having a master like you to help her.’

Sheila stepped forward next to offer a hug. ‘By the way, girls, Knackers rang this morning. Looks like Max will be let out of hospital tomorrow. They’re all going on a holiday in the Whitsundays. Knackers sounded so excited. Just like a big kid himself really.’

Patty laughed. ‘Knackers in shorts? I’d like to see that! His legs have never seen the sun. Ever. Oh God, those white chicken legs.’

Bella tried to swallow her giggles but the vision of a red-faced Knackers, broad-brimmed hat on his head, big barrel chest clad in a striped cowboy shirt sauntering down the sand with psychedelic board shorts on was too much. Unfortunately the Queenslanders standing around them couldn’t see the joke.

‘Well,
something’s
funny,’ said Rodney, looking puzzled.

Sheila smiled. These two girls really had brought a ray of sunshine to Ainsley Station, even if she couldn’t understand some of their jokes. They would be missed. ‘Good luck, you two. Stay in touch.’

Piling into the fully laden ute, the girls flung kisses from the windows as they spun the wheels on the track for the last time.

‘Well, that’s it,’ said Patty, as she nosed her ute through the gateway of Ainsley Station. She pulled up beside the forty-four gallon drum mailbox. ‘Which way do we go? We’re running a couple of months early.’

‘Well, I’ve been thinking . . .’ said Bella, and Patty buried her face in her hands.

‘Last time you
thought
, Hells Bells, we got fired.’

‘Yeah well, we had a good time doing it, didn’t we?’

‘Too right we did. That liquor was top-shelf stuff.’

‘As I was saying, I was thinking we could pool our bucks and still have a little holiday on the way home.’

‘A
little
holiday? Neither of us is due back to work until January, although I wouldn’t mind getting home earlier.’ Patty’s dark eyes turned dreamy and Bella knew she was thinking of Macca.

‘I wouldn’t mind getting home either, so how about we check out the coast and make it home in time for the Burrindal B&S and Christmas – what do you reckon? If we’re careful with our money we might be able to do it.’

‘It sounds like a plan,’ said Patty. ‘But . . .’

‘But what?’

‘Maybe we should try and be a little bit responsible here. Go west and get another job?’

‘Responsible? Since when have
you
been responsible?’

‘C’mon. I’ve been very responsible since we made our last bet.’

‘Bullshit! You slept with Macca!’

‘And you should have slept with Will. Maybe you wouldn’t be so bloody cranky if you had. Although why anyone would want to get down and dirty with my brother . . . Yuck!’

‘The bet was no sleeping with anyone until six weeks after you met them.’ Bella was indignant. ‘You just gave in, Patty. How could you? We were trying to save
your
soul, after all.’

‘I’ve known Macca for years, so he doesn’t count.’

‘You’re splitting hairs, Pat Me Tuffet.’

‘You’re just dirty you didn’t work out the loophole first.’

Yep, she was. Totally. ‘You owe me a slab of rum-and-coke and fifty dollars, girl.’

Patty ignored her and pulled a coin from the ashtray. ‘Heads we go left to the coast and a holiday; tails we go right and inland to find a job out west for a while. We’ll head home in time for the B&S, though; I can feel those Ariat boots on my feet already.’