Page 42 of The Vet from Snowy River
She swallowed.
‘Um, yes? How about you?’
‘I was born ready; I’ll be in touch.’
As the call ended, she let her phone slip to the table, wishing she’d been born with just one per cent of Sue Anton’s confidence.
‘Well,’ she said, resting her hand on her aunt’s pale one. ‘Decision made, Jill. I think you’d be a tiny bit proud of me.’
Jill’s head was nodding, as though she was the type of woman who agreed with whatever was going on around her.
Vera snorted. As if.
Jill—the old Jill—was at her happiest when she was neck deep into an argument about politics or climate change. Jill would have had no hesitation about taking on the legal system. She’d have had no hesitation about flirting in a dimly lit foyer either.
‘Cup of tea over here, ladies?’
She looked up as an orderly in navy scrubs approached them. A trolley had been set up beneath the wisteria. ‘Oh, yes please. Black for me, Jill has hers with milk and—’
‘Milk and one,’ finished the man.
She smiled at him. ‘I don’t think we’ve met.’
‘Tim. You need a little butter for that scone you’ve brought?’
Vera glanced at her waxed carton and the scone she’d torn into bite-size pieces. ‘No, thank you, Jill’s not a butter fan.’
‘I’ll try to remember that,’ said Tim. ‘Here you go.’ He set two cups before them, durable china with a sturdy handle for her, and a sip cup for Jill. ‘She can hold this herself, she tells me. Now, can I interest you in some reading material from my trolley? Lots of the residents enjoy having the paper read to them. There are magazines up in the common room, too, if you’d prefer to read something about four-wheel drives or surprise royal babies.’
She raised her eyebrows. ‘Er … Thanks, Tim.’
She waited until he’d moved to other residents enjoying the sun, then pulled the letter she’d written from her handbag. No surprise royal babies there. ‘Shall I read to you while you have your tea, Jill?’
No answer, so she cleared her throat and began anyway. ‘Dear Aunt Jill. It’s me again, Vera, your niece. I have a little fun news that you might enjoy…’
By the time she finished, her aunt’s gaze had drifted above the treeline to the smudge of mountain purpling the distant sky.
‘Jill?’
No response.
‘Is there anything you’d like to talk about, Aunt Jill? Anything you need?’
Still nothing. She glanced at her watch. There was nowhere she needed to be, and she had plenty of time. Perhaps she could put Tim’s advice into practice. Her eye fell on the newspapers he’d stacked on the wicker table, and she rifled through a few pages of theSnowy River Star. National politics was a nope, dry as dust; worries about drought; a bushfire out of control in the high country. She turned the page to an exposé on a local businesswoman who’d made a donation to the repertory theatre and smiled. Right up Jill’s alley.
She started reading.Businesswoman and former mayor Isabella Lang is the platinum sponsor of the upcoming Snowy River Region Repertory Theatre summer season. Opera, melodrama, and some new Australian drama is heading your way this year, with a focus on—
She paused as the name Cody caught her eye on a side bar. She read the heading, Hanrahan Chatter, and realised she was looking at a community page. She smiled. She may have only moved two hours’ drive from Queanbeyan, but in some ways it was like she’d moved a century back in time.
Our very own Josh Cody returns to Hanrahan after fifteen years and takes up a role as veterinarian in the Cody and Cody Vet Clinic founded by his younger sister Hannah Cody. Mr Cody is the only graduate of Hanrahan High ever to receive a full scholarship to the University of Sydney.
What a shame he didn’t go. He’d sure put plenty of practice in at the school science lab, or so we hear, and—
Vera frowned. Was this the standard of news local readers were subjected to here in the Snowy Mountains? This sounded like the sort of trash Poppy had been subjected to that had resulted in a crying jag in her back alley.
‘What a load of rubbish,’ she said, moving her eyes up to the date on the paper’s banner. Yes. Last week. That poor kid.
‘Oh hell,’ she said as a thought struck her. What was today’s date? Or more to the point, what wastoday?
