Page 10 of A Home Among the Snow Gums
‘Hannah Cody. My sister, remember her? Who, for some reason she will not divulge, is avoiding you.’
Far out. He took a moment to straighten the newspaper so its edges aligned neatly with the table’s; an important task, and he’d done it like a boss.
‘Five foot two, dark red hair, soft heart hidden—deeplyhidden—under a cranky exterior.’
Nope, no way was he going to be drawn into whatever trap Josh was setting for him.
A deep woof at the door was a timely distraction and—
Crap.
Josh had his back to the street, so he didn’t know that the person he was describing was standing right there, as though conjured up by her brother’s one-sided conversation—and Tom’s deeply buried thoughts.
She was here to reclaim Jane Doe, by the looks, because she had a red lead in her hand and her usual look on her face. The cranky look. Her hair was in a messy plait and it dangled over her shoulder in the way it had for as long as he’d known her. Well, other than the time when he, at Josh’s urging, had cut it off with a pair of sewing scissors from Mrs Cody’s sewing basket. She’d been about eight.
He hadn’t been in love with her then, of course. No way, yuck, gross. The playground rules at primary school were very clear on this issue: she was covered in girl germs and he, at eleven, had been obliged to spend every minute of little lunch and big lunch playing handball, and practising saying swear words with casual ease, and maintaining his position in the school as fastest runner from the bubbler on the oval to the hot pie queue out front of the tuckshop.
Those playground girl germs had hung around foryearsuntil … later. Until he had stubble (true, it’d been a minuscule bit of stubble, but even minuscule counted for a lot back then) and enormous feet and Mrs L had decreed that grunting was not an adequate response to her daily questions:How was your day at school, my lamb? Are you totally sure you understand that deodorant is meant to be usedeveryday? Who ate the last of the chocolate cakeandthe lamb roastandthe chicken coconut curry and left the empty dishes in the fridge?
But, of course, by then he was operating under the mateship rules: Hannah was his best friend’s little sister so he had to ignore the mushy knots his innards tied themselves into whenever he saw her.
And all these years later?
He tightened his grip on the tabletop. There she was, leaning in the doorway, her cranky look turned to laughter at something Graeme had said to her. She was smiling as though she’d never cried in the stables a single day of her life. As though Tom could forget about his present and return to his past and stand up,right now, and go over there and—
Shit.
And do nothing. Just ask his doctor: he was playing by a very different set of rules now, so there was no point sitting here with his innards all mushy again just because Hannah Cody was over there by the door looking just the way he liked her to look: sunny and capable and stroppy, all at the same time.
‘Mate. The cat got your tongue or what? One of these days you’re going to have to tell me what went on between you and Hannah.’
Huh. He’d forgotten all about Josh. Maybe if he tried hard enough, he’d be able to forget all about Hannah, too, and Josh would never need to know. A special project might not be the dumbest idea his doctor had ever had.
‘Sorry, mate, there’s nothing to tell. Thanks for the heads up about Dalgety. Now, if you wouldn’t mind pissing off back to your dicky knee, I’ve got a crossword to hog.’
CHAPTER
3
A woman’s ovaries will shrivel into prunes over time and by her thirty-second year, fertility will have plummeted to—
‘Why do you buy these, Kylie? Some of them are total junk.’
Nearly a month had passed since Hannah’s epiphany, and now, everywhere she turned, were reminders.
She dropped the out-of-date chick magazine onto a table in the mechanic’s workshop, where it landed next to a pile of other glossies promising an eclectic mix of articles like WINBACKYOURMAN WITHROASTLAMBand OFF-ROADADVENTURES: SNOWYMOUNTAINS INAUTUMN.The sun was still low in the sky and a pleasing beam of it had made its way through the open roller door and now warmed Hannah’s face.
As if fertility plummeted, jeez. Although … there was nothing stopping her having a quick browse through the textbooks back at the clinic. Just to be sure. Bovine ovaries couldn’t be that different from her ovaries, could they?
Kylie was on a wheelie thing tucked under the battered body of Hannah’s hatchback and the only parts of her in view were hot pink socks tucked into grease-spattered boots. Her voice came out muffled. ‘If we’re going to talk junk, Han, we should start with your car. You’re going to need a new gearbox any minute now, your main seal looks like it’s about to explode—which will make your car blow up, by the way, something which even your wonder mechanic can’t fix—and there’s a rust patch under here that I could pass a watermelon through.’
Hannah sniffed. ‘The green machine is fine.’
Wheels rumbled over the cement floor and then the face of her best friend since kindergarten was frowning at her. ‘Giving your car a cutesy nickname does not disguise the fact that it has had it. I know you hate change, Hannah, but seriously. This thing is a death trap.’
Perspective was everything, wasn’t it? One person’s death trap was another person’s safety net: having a crap car had provided Hannah with a lot of excuses over the years. Family wedding in Canberra? So sorry, I can’t possibly drive that far without the radiator overheating. Vet school reunion in Wagga Wagga? Such a shame, if only I could make it, but my tyres are bald and I just spent all my money on patient-warming blankets.
‘I don’t hate change.’ She was scared of change, which was a totally different thing.
